Tanks, Planes, Boats, Military Stuff

[Rey]

(07-05-2011 06:14 PM)old honda rider Wrote:  I have never, ever felt more closely connected to our living history as I was in those few moments.

Hey Old Honda Rider, that’s a great story. I really do like meeting those guys, and I have met a few at our reenactment events. In my story I wrote over in “The Holiday” thread from Memorial Day weekend, the description I used about getting shot came from one of those WWII veterans I talked to. Here is another veteran that told us a great story at one of our events:



He is there, surrounded by some listeners, with his scrapbook of photos to accompany his story. He told about how he was in a plane over France and was shot down by German anti aircraft fire. He parachuted down to safety and found a group of enemy Germans in pursuit of him as he hid and tried to find his way. On the way down he had also been shot in the butt, so he had that to deal with too. The Germans never did find him and he eventually hooked up with a French resistance group that hid him until the end of the war when it was safe. He had pictures of everything to back up his story including some pictures of the resistance members that helped him. He said he went back to France later in life to revisit some of the places where this had all happened. This was an incredible story and I was just in awe of this man. Its great to be a reenactor and be able to meet the real thing like that (something the Civil War reenactors never get a chance to do). Like OHR said, these guys are the real living history, and there are less and less of them every year still around.

Before telling his story, this mans family at the event had told the two German guards (in the left of the picture) about how he had evaded them and escaped back in the war. The guards went to the German headquarters in town, had official arrest paperwork typed up, and went out on a detachment to have the man captured and placed in jail. Upon realizing he was under arrest, the man ran away and escaped again. He had a ball. We really made him feel like he was a celebrity, which in our eyes, he was.

Later the Allies arrived, fought the Germans, and liberated the village from occupation, and all was well again.

-Rey