Bader's Briar here...a LONG time fan of antique aviation!

Dear Fellow WW II and Antique Aviation Fans:

Bader's Briar here, with my "forum handle" originating both from my sincere respect for an amazing British fighter pilot named Douglas Bader in the earlier World War II years, as possibly the highest-scoring "physically challenged" fighter pilot for the entire war on either side (remember, he had to use prosthetic legs to fly Hurricanes and Spits!) and even the Luftwaffe respected him, especially after he became a POW under German control. The "other" part of that "handle" is that I also share a love of pipe smoking as Bader himself did...I've enjoyed them for almost forty years now, and will continue to enjoy them as long as I'm around.

The WW II years sure saw an amazing series of "coincidences" and ironies during the "six years and a day" that the war lasted (Sept 1, 1939 to Sept, 2, 1945)...one of the greatest ironies that's impressed me from online research, and from viewing certain historic television documentaries, was how people of Japanese ethnicity helped to save some of the Ashkenazim (European Jews) from Hitler's demented intentions. One was Chiune Sugihara (first name pronounced (chie-nay, with a silent "U" in there as I understand it), who managed to save a number of roughly 6,000 Lithuanian Ashkenazim before Hitler made the fatal mistake of taking on the Soviet Union. Much nearer to the end of the war in Europe, during the liberation of Dachau's satellite camps in late April 1945, the American Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Batallion (on detached service from the much more famous 442nd Nisei Japanese-American US Army unit in Europe) liberated the so-named "Kaufering IV Hurlach" satellite camp of Dachau, saving hundreds of barely-alive Ashkenazim from the dying Third Reich.

My love of antique aviation goes straight back to Orville and Wilbur in 1903 and even earlier in some respects, and peaks with the era beginning with Archduke Franz Ferdinand's death in the summer of 1914, starting World War I...right through to the end of the 1930s. The WW II years are just about as fascinating, especially with the slower biplanes and other light aircraft from the WW II years, especially with the Polikarpov Po-2, Focke-Wulf Fw 44 Stieglitz, Piper L-4 Grasshopper and Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.

I'll also admit that I'm a fair bit of a STINKER about correct historic designations for aircraft in anything I read or write about aviation of the past...Messerschmitt's famous fighter plane of WW II was, for example, ALWAYS officially named the Bf 109, and never anything else, hence my nicknaming it the "Biff" for both a personal reminder, and to remind others in a friendly sort of way.

In my life, I've been a many-time visitor to Cole Palen's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (it's literally "my second home"!) ever since 1972, have visited the USAF museum in Dayton, visited the NASM in Washington DC's L'Enfant Plaza twice before - even with a visit to its library there, and to the Paul Garber Facility while it was still open, for its tours. More recently, in October 2009 I got a REAL appreciation what our 8th Air Force bomber crews had to have gone through on their missions over the Reich so long ago, when the Collings Foundation's B-17 "Nine-O-Nine" and B-24 "Witchcraft" visited Norwood Airport in Norwood, MA...some of my photos from that visit can be seen at Clipwings.com , and there's more photos from that visit still on my hard disk, when I did the "walk-through" of each heavy bomber.

As I've been out of work since September 2008 (when the recession broke) I've been keeping myself quite busy doing anything that can get me back to work...I completed a long-delayed two-year business degree last June, and have been through some two dozen interviews since May of 2009, all without a single job offer so far. I am NOT giving up, though...things should slowly be getting better, and my most recent interview DID give me some further hope for the future.

Just looking forward to a great experience here...a good forum to discuss some "discoveries" I've made...particularly about the most enigmatic aircraft of all in the war to my mind, Heinkel's "grauerliche Grief" (Gruesome Griffin) He 177A and particularly its developments, about which a simply superb book by Manfred Griehl and Joachim Dressel authored in 1998 has simply BLOWN AWAY any previous preconceptions. Such preconceptions have been previously documented in earlier aviation history volumes, and is reflected in my postings at the English-language Wikipedia on all three of them, the real world He 177B (four of which were ordered by the RLM, and which three of were completed to airworthy status, the first flying on four DB 603 engines on December 20, 1943), the French-completed pair of He 274 prototypes, and its NEVER BUILT Amerika Bomber derivative with a top out'n'back combat radius of nearly 3,500 miles, the previously (before the Griehl/Dressel tome) OH-so-nebulous He 277, with my review of that book readable at Amazon as the second posted one.

Got to get going for the present...hope to have a great time, and learn at least a few more things about WW II aviation here as well.

Thanks and Yours Sincerely,

Bader's Briar....!!

 

Welcome Aboard!

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

Enjoy your stay with us, Bader was a great man and he was one of the greatest too

 

welcome to our little home B/B, please check the aviation links in that particular forum it might give you a hint as to what has been posted previously and for some things to come, which reminds me I need to get the P-61 thread started by Ulrich completed in Januar 2013......