Dame Vera Lynn, "The Force's Sweetheart."
What can I say?
Soar with the angels Dame Vera, there's a thunderous reception waiting for you.
This is where I learned her name:
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Very nice Penny.
I was gonna take us on a YouTube trip to Sun Valley but you beat me to it!
I'm glad to see others here mourning the passing of this fine lady who, at 103 seemed almost like a visitor from another time.
Listening to her music brings more than one tear to my eye and perhaps that of others; maybe it's because she reminds us of all the people we used to know who once loved us as we loved them and are now only a cherished memory.
Another time indeed.
One of my favorite aviation historians, Edward Jablonski, in writing about the times of WW2 called them "The bittersweet years of war."
Despite all the horror, and there was plenty of it, I think Jablonski tried to put into words that for some there was more than it seemed. And he was no starry-eyed kid, as a ground combat soldier he saw plenty of what no-one should ever see.
I think I know what he was trying to say. Does this make sense?
Flintlock76Does this make sense?
Overmod Flintlock76 Does this make sense? Ask Hobey Baker.
Flintlock76 Does this make sense?
Ask Hobey Baker.
I'll admit I had to look that one up.
Hobey Baker, the champion hockey player and fighter pilot, who may have used an airplane engine failure as a means for a post-war (WW1) suicide since he couldn't live without the excitement of combat and dreaded going home to a "9 to 5" existance?
I don't think that's was Jablonski meant by "bittersweet years of war." I think what he meant was that for those at war while there's there's a lot a things they'll want to forget, there's a lot of things they'll enjoy remembering. Certainly there's men for whom combat acts like a drug, they love the thrill and excitement, but they're definately in the minority!
I've never met a combat veteran who wanted to repeat the experience, by the way.
There's a good possibility Hobey was one of that minority.
Hobie Baker
I went looking for another Vera Lynn standard, found it too!
AND with a back-up chorus of Rolls Royce Merlin engines!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUx3MU9iM6c
Flintlock76Hobey Baker, the champion hockey player and fighter pilot, who may have used an airplane engine failure as a means for a post-war (WW1) suicide since he couldn't live without the excitement of combat and dreaded going home to a "9 to 5" existence? I don't think that's what Jablonski meant by "bittersweet years of war."
I don't think that's what Jablonski meant by "bittersweet years of war."
It's always fun to see people make excuses based on their own little prejudices for what people like Baker might do. People, I might add, who have never seen combat they didn't 'have' to be drafted into, or that involved random death as cannon fodder ... or spam-in-a-can bomber crews. Passing judgment on men, be it added, who were unlike, say, Mick Mannock who lived for the chance to slaughter Huns wherever and whenever he could, rather than having principles about what their efforts were preserving.
I've always thought of this as similar to 'preppies' (or their less-comedic counterparts, collegiates) for whom a few years were the most memorable things they accomplished. It's not that career is impossibly boring; it's that the atmosphere, the friendships, the sense of being part of something great "peaks" for them then ... in ways both good and bad.
For Jablonski, writing about the Greatest Generation, the war was something important for most of these young men, after their 'growing up' was likely often ruined by aspects of the Depression. On the other hand, it's remarkable how many of these men ... in both great wars ... preferred never to talk about their experiences except to other veterans, not even to family. (Once you got them to open up, though, you could often see what made for the memorability, bittersweet though it be.)
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