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Chance encounter

aeromed202

aeromed202

SOH-CM-2014
Had a chance to meet a wonderful old gent today at work. We got to talking and things got around to where we were from then that led to, of course somehow WWII and airplanes. Turns out he was in the Air Force and part of the group that built, if I understood him, Meeks Field Iceland. This was part of the Atlantic Route used to ferry and deliver new allied bombers to the ETO. He rattled off a handful of stories before I had to go, I could have stayed an hour or two at least. A bit of living history to brighten my day.
 
I love those kinds of chance encounters. I have had many of them over the years and have been floored by some of the people I have met. One chance encounter found me having a conversation with the man who designed the canopy system for the Focke-Wulf 190 (had no way to confirm or deny this....the guy did have a very strong German accent, was of the right age, and knew a lot about the 190....a lot of what he told me I looked up and found that it was spot on). Another chance encounter saw me having a chat with two WW2 pilots...one Brit and one German. The first "met" over the English Channel (or there abouts) during the Battle of Britain. The German pilot, flying a 109, shot down and killed (he said he never meant to kill the pilot, just the plane) the best friend of the Brit. After the war, they met in real life, shared stories, became best of friends, become God-Fathers to each other's children, celebrated holidays at each other's homes, and now that they are retired...they travel the world together visiting air and military museums. One chance encounter stands out in my mind as the greatest 10 minute conversation of my life. The guy served aboard the Yorktown...ya know, the aircraft carrier of WW2. He was on the Yorktown when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he was on Yorktown when she was damaged during the battle of the Coral Sea, he was on the Yorktown when she was sunk at Midway. He talked of the friends and shipmates he lost....of fighting the fires, of recovering the wounded and the dead, of a Jap bomb that landed on deck but did not explode and rolled into the hatchway where he was tending to a wounded shipmate.

Life if full of chance encounters.....and I take full advantage of them. Heck, I create chance encounters. I give every vet I see a firm handshake, a salute and a heart felt thank you. My wife says that I pester strangers...I just say that there isn't such a thing as strangers, just friends you haven't met yet.

OBIO
 
Or the fellow who, on talking for a minute or so, I learned was in the 1st Marines and survived the Pacific War essentially in one piece. He teared up when I gave him a little hug. Or the guy who I found out was a Vietnam Marine Corps air ace. Downplaying it of course. Yes indeed, history for the discovering for sure.
 
I once went with a friend to a computer auction, to help her get a new PC. At one point she felt a little unwell, and needed to sit down with a coffee; the only free chairs were on a table where an elderly gentleman was sitting, so he invited us to sit. Well, we got talking, as you do, and it turned out that this 'elderly gentleman' had been part of the Colossus team at Bletchley Park!! It was a real privilege to spend some time with this pioneer, and to discuss that time with him, and to see how he was still passionate about the whole subject. Chance encounters, wonderful things!!
 
Got another one. I was with a vet some years ago and he offered up a nice little tale. When he was a kid, he and a friend wanted very badly to see Lindbergh's plane when it visited the Minneapolis area. Being the consummate rascal he admitted to being, they sneeked around the buildings at the perimeter when suddenly they turned a corner and there the plane was. It was so tantalizingly close that he got it into his head that he just had to touch it. Problem was there was a grownup or two nearby. So this guy, picture Bill Cosby telling this story as only he can, decided in an instant he was going for it. He just jumped and ran past the barrier, past everything else, smacked a hand on the rudder and then bolted back the way he came all the way home. I had the image from To Kill a Mockingbird where Jem ran up to the Radley door on a dare in mind when I first heard this story.
 
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