My Gramps gave me his WW2 medals and his fathers WW1 medals today. I noticed that his fathers medals included the DSC. I knew his father was at some point a master mariner in Maryport, as a lot of our family were. I also knew his other claim to fame was that he was born off the cape of good hope on the sister ship to the "Cutty Sark"; the "John Gambles". What I didn't know was that he (Robert Brown) was the navigator on the E11 which appears to be quite a famous submarine. His involvment with the Dardanelles raids earned him the DSC. http://www.rnsubmus.co.uk/nasmith/nasmith.htm *Proud*
Bloody right it was. Naismith was a raiding submariner in exactly the same mould as the U-boat aces of WW2 (Prien, Kretschmer, etc).
And rightly. They never blew their own trumpets, that lot, did they. I am a tad proud of my Pa, who was badly wounded at a small hill in Italy called Monte Cassino. And me Ma, who was at the Windmill all through the war, bombs and all. (No, never took clothes off.) Ali
Been doing some more digging this afternoon, my gramps has a load of his photos inc a huge original crew shot of the E11. My gramps is really interesting as well, 30yrs in the RAF, based in Egypt, Kenya & US. He was an explosives expert and worked on Thor & Blue Streak ICBM's at Edwards AFB & Vanderbergh. Probably why he is as deaf as a post now !
The Older Gentleman wrote Well, from what my dear old white haired deceased grandmother said, may the sneer painted on her face by the gin never cease to scare horses, that particular part of wartime London was best known by my mother while she was performing her liaison duties for the merkin air force and most of the stories I hear only involve underwear, or rather the lack of it so he may be right.
Both my grandads were involved with Blue Streak at Spadeadam. Sounds to have been an interesting time.
Must've been sweaty for her. -- Dave GS850x2 XS650 SE6a I demand nothing of you except that you amuse me. Folding@Home Team UKRM http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=47957
Will do.... relative of yours ? Apparently my gramps was the first european to fire one of these things. He has loads of tales of early firings where everything went pear shaped, pitch and yaw control going wrong, falling over on the pads etc - sounds fekin dangerous !!
Wife's father. Spent time in the US being trained on Thor, then was based at Bardney for the duration of the programme. The missile had a couple of guidance cameras that had to zero themselves to fixed datum marks before launch, one mark on the gantry and a distant mark on the airfield somewhere. The distant camera had a little door that closed automatically, and the near camera had a little door that needed a tech sergeant to run out with a broom and bang it shut. Guess who got the job?
Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, platypus Heh. One of my mates used to work on a fairly antiquated piece of radar kit. It would occasionally lock-up due to a sticking relay. A swift kick to the appropriate spot would unstick the relay and all would be well. It seems A Very Senior Officer decided that this was unprofessional and a better solution should be found. The next day a large "Reset" button (red, naturally) appeared on the console. Pressing this would result in the system starting to work again. What it did (of course) was energise a solenoid that would whack the appropriate spot and unstick the relay... -- Wicked Uncle Nigel - To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods. WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41 SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner", Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big" Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000
I am a girlie, btw. My mother's stage name is/was Charmian Innes. If you've seen _Mrs Henderson Presents_, she gets a credit at the end of it - and she's been in a fair bit of the publicity for the film, taaw. There's a quote someplace from Vivian Van Damm about her remaining fully clothed..... Ali
There's still one there, along with the remains of the test platforms, which you can go and see if you know the right people and/or ask very nicely[1]. There's also a Centrica (was British Gas?) test site there, where they blow up gas pipes and stuff - was where the Guy Fawkes re-creation was done for TV last year (Richard Hammond et al). Shock waves from the explosions there occasionally reach my workplace, and rattle the building a bit. I'm told the security is tighter there than for the RAF... BTW, technically it's Spadeadam Forest; Kielder Forest is further over, although they really all run into one. [1] I know some useful people, also paternal grandfather was a De Haviland technician on the Blue Streak.
Well when I was there security was pretty informal. It had a fucking excellent canteen. Put on half a stone in 2 weeks.
He said the name rings a bell, but can't picture him. He says they went out twice for two firings, the 2nd which was off by about 7miles wide & 70miles short. His name was Robert "Bob" Brown. Later this week he is going to dig out some of his old docs & certificates to try and jog his memory.
I had a friend there or thereabouts who was in charge of the Last Remaining Blackbird. Rumour has it she wasn't slow on a bike, either. -- Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration, Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005 WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon) KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".
