I was visiting my Dad for his 87th (!!) brithday last week. He regailed me of some of the stories from his WWII Navy Experience.
1) Dad was a Radar/Sonar man in a PBY Catalina. He flew anti-sub patrols off of Florida. During one patrol, he reported a blip on his sonar. Radio man and navigator confirmed free fire zone. They dropped their two depth charges....
Up came a dead whale....
SOOO...Being the enterprising chaps that they were, instead of German, Italian or Japanese flags painted on their plane...THey painted a whale!!!
2) On days not flying, Dad and his group were MP's at a German/Italian Naval forces POW camp. Being typical GI's, Dad and his group would give extra clothing, blankets, rations, cigarettes, etc to the prisoners. Now it seems that there were a couple of German Officers who insisted that all of these goodies belonged to them...
Well, as Dad put it...Those German Officers fell down the steps....several times. Hard.
3) Towards the end of WWII, Dad was training to be a carrier fighter pilot for the invasion of Japan. We have a picture of Dad in his flying outfit. Red Barron beware!!!! Dad dressed in leather jacket, leather helmet, scarf, goggles, gloves, etc.
You see, training back then was done in BI-PLANES!!!!!
Also, as part of the "unofficial" training, there were many "Points" scored by Dad and his fellow learners when they would run the landing gear of their planes on TOP of the long freight trains that moved material.
Hope you enjoy these stories. Dad sure enjoys telling them.
Mike