Quicksand Fans

From Warbirds News

Passed away today in Roanoke, Virginia at the age of 92

And Like Mal said to Zoe,

"What's that make us?"
"Big Damn Heros, Sir!"
"Aint we just!"

You want a visual for a movie, well try this pic for a scene. Actually happened. And he killed the 109. And got away.

Sad news. The whole World War Ii generation is inexorably fading from the scene. When one considers they came through the Depression, fought World War II, and then rebuilt their nation when they came home, it's easy to see why Tom Brokaw called them 'The Greatest Generation.'

Most of them likely didn't aspire to greatness, but they responded when greatness was thrust upon them.

Looking at that photo with the Bf 109, I wonder if Mr. Overstreet didn't marvel in astonishment at some of the things he did when he was young pilot. He probably wondered how he survived to a ripe old age. As they say, there are bold pilots and old pilots, but not many old, bold pilots.

-Big Bad John

Another hero passed on.

We need to make sure our children and our children's children hear these stories. History books can be dry. How much better when Dad or Grandpa explains to a ten-year-old how the raid on the Death Star in the first Star Wars movie was based on the "Dambusters" raid on the Ruhr valley hydro dams? Then they Wiki it to check your story, start chasing hyperlinks, and you've got them hooked. I remember telling the story of the run-up to D-day, how allied intelligence bamboozled the Germans into thinking the landing would be at the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy. And the stories of the Battle of the Bulge, during that horrible winter of 1944-45. Never let the next generations forget the price the "Greatest Generation" paid for their freedom.

nachtjaeger wrote:Another hero passed on.

We need to make sure our children and our children's children hear these stories. History books can be dry. How much better when Dad or Grandpa explains to a ten-year-old how the raid on the Death Star in the first Star Wars movie was based on the "Dambusters" raid on the Ruhr valley hydro dams? Then they Wiki it to check your story, start chasing hyperlinks, and you've got them hooked. I remember telling the story of the run-up to D-day, how allied intelligence bamboozled the Germans into thinking the landing would be at the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy. And the stories of the Battle of the Bulge, during that horrible winter of 1944-45. Never let the next generations forget the price the "Greatest Generation" paid for their freedom.

I'll say "Amen!" to that!

-Big Bad John

Dive bombing through an opening about only three times the width and twice the height of your plane at 500 mph while machine gunning the plane in front of you......when I pass on if I've achieved half this guys level of bad-assness I'll die happy.
The scars of the worst conflict in human history are fading away. There's both bad points to this and good.

Think we have enough emotional distance to start remembering the bravery and sacrifice on the German side? Guys like tank ace Michael Wittman (and his gunner, Balthasar "Bobby" Woll.) Like Erich Hartmann, the greatest fighter ace of all time. And the entire German 6th Army at Stalingrad: Of over half a million men, only 110,000 or so survived to be captured by the Russians. Of those, only about 5,000 survived, and some of them didn't make it home until 1955- 13 years later.

And don't forget the Russians who gave their lives fighting the Nazis. Mamyev Kurgan was a 100 meter tall Tatar burial mound near Stalingrad. Nobody knows just how many German and Russian soldiers died there. So many shells fell on it that it was almost completely leveled. They say that there are almost a thousand fragments of shrapnel and bone at the top of the hill- per square meter. It is now home to the colossal statue Motherland Calls raised in memorial.

Mynock wrote:Dive bombing through an opening about only three times the width and twice the height of your plane at 500 mph while machine gunning the plane in front of you......when I pass on if I've achieved half this guys level of bad-assness I'll die happy.
The scars of the worst conflict in human history are fading away. There's both bad points to this and good.

Wittmann never gets his due, partly perhaps due to the nature of armoured combat, and partly because he served with the Waffen-SS. Well known enough in armour circles, probably because of his later association with the Tiger. When you start getting into the argument (still, 69 years on...) over Villers-Bocage and then who later actually got him (Sherbrooke Fusiliers, suck it, limeys ) it is fairly amazing that a tank commander genders such controversy

Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident you probably heard of this one

Impressive statue - tip of sword just about the height of the torch in Statue of Liberty

I don't know who the German pilot chased by Bill Overstreet was, but I give him a Big Balls Award for flying through the Eiffel Tower's arches to begin with. That was a Hollywood-worthy move. The pilots from the different nations that fought in WWII seem to have the easiest time of all the vets meeting up and swapping stories. I think it's a combination of the Brotherhood of Flight thing and the weird personal-yet-impersonal nature of aerial combat that draws them together. I've met a lot of WWII fighter pilots from all nations, and the Allied and Axis pilots just about always treat each other as if they had been no more than rivals rather than enemies during the war.

Here's the write-up from the Air Force Association Newsletter:

Famed WWII Pilot Who Flew Through Eiffel Tower Died
William Overstreet Jr., a World War II fighter pilot who in 1944 famously flew his P-51C Mustang through the arches of the Eiffel Tower while in pursuit of a German Messerschmitt Bf 109G aircraft, died at a hospital in Roanoke, Va., on Dec. 29, reported the local paper. He was 92. The cause of his death was not immediately clear, according to various press reports. The famous flight was said to have inspired French Resistance fighters on the ground in Nazi-occupied Paris at the time. "He figured I'd try to get around and he'd have time to get away. He was wrong," Overstreet once said in an interview posted on NPR. "I was right behind him, right under the Eiffel Tower with him. And when he pulled up, I did get him. But that's a huge space. That's not close at all. It's plenty of room to go under the Eiffel Tower, but it makes a good story." Overstreet was awarded many medals for his service in the US Army Air Forces 357th squadron, but one of his "greatest honors" was receiving France's Legion of Honor during a D-Day memorial ceremony in 2009, at the age of 88, states the paper. During the ceremony, the French ambassador said Overstreet led "some of the most heroic actions that we have ever heard of" during the liberation of France in WWII, reported The Roanoke Times. He was preceded in death by his wife Nita Brackens.

Yay to the aces! People have to go when the time comes, but some people will be remembered forever!

Well, Eiffel Tower, you say...

In Soviet Union was one well-known case when a pilot flied under a bridge over the river. It was Valery Chkalov, a famous test pilot of the 1930-s. He did it to impress a girl (he was a famous philander). Though, they call it a heroic deed.

But there was another case, which my father told me about. Now there is an information about it in the Internet, but I'm afraid, it's only in Russian. In 1965 a military pilot Valentin Privalov flied under the bridge over Ob river in the very center of Novosibirsk. He did it because, as he said, he knew that he can and he couldn't refrain from it. He was arrested after it but the Minister of Defense Marshal Malinovsky ordered to return him to service - he said that our army needs such pilots. What was unique in the flight of Valentin Privalov? He did it on a jet fighter MiG-17 (as I read in the Internet, though my father said it was Su-7). And the space under the bridge is definitely much lower than under the Eiffel Tower.

A small remark about Stalingrad. I am always totally puzzled why Western (especially American) people always mention Stalingrad only. It was one of the major battles of the WWII, I agree, but only one of. Not the first victory over Germans, and not the most lethal. (The initial offensive of the Germans in 1941 was - and I hope will remain forever - the most lethal battle in human history.) You'd say, it was the pivot point. Yes, again, one of. The battle of Moscow in December 1941 was more critical, and the victory was... I'd say, more surprising. I don't know how they managed to stop the Germans in less than 40 km (25 miles) from Kremlin. Yes, the Germans were exhausted to that moment, but they were in 25 miles from Kremlin. They were in Khimki - it is closer to the center than any of today's Moscow airports.