Hi Guys, as some of you know, I do work with the regular British Army providing displays and presentations of WW2 material, both British and Soviet.
Last month I was asked to do a small presentation on the British Airborne soldier as he would have appeared during the campaign in Greece in 1944. This involved a trip to the Army Air Corps museum down in Middle Wallop. Over the years I have corresponded with the museum and always found them most helpful with any questions I have asked. But I had not actually visited the museum, so the invite from the Army was a great chance to finally see the museum.
I arrived early so as to give myself time to view the museum prior to the work part of the day. After a light lunch with a former Lt. Col of the Parachute Regt, I had a good look around. They have some very nice display covering the whole history of Army flying, with plenty of original artefacts on display. My main interest was of course the Glider Pilot Regt.
The Army are always looking to learn from the past due to the ever changing nature of warfare in the 21st Century. Battlefield tours are an excellent method of teaching and the officers were off to Greece to study the German operation at Corinith and the later British experience in Greece in 1944. Ideas that were good 70 years ago but have been superseded by new technology over time, might, with a fresh look, be updated for possible use once again? To that end, a demonstration was put on by two pilots from the Army Gliding club. The demo was to land two gliders directly in front of the class of Officers attending the event. The gliders were released several miles away and came in, silently of course, to land just in front of us. A nice bit of flying.
Cheers, Ade.
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