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hello my name is ben Lovegrove and in
this video I want to tell you a short
World War two story there are of course
thousands of such stories the Second
World War was a conflict that was so
large and which touched so many lives
that it's hard for us today to
comprehend the scale of it perhaps by
telling this story here on YouTube
someone from the gentlemen's family or a
friend of a friend will recognize it and
fill in the details here then is the
story my wife and I were on a holiday
flight to the Caribbean in the late
1990s we were traveling in economy on a
747 and were seated in two out of three
seats on the right of the cabin I sat in
the middle seat and in the window seat
next to me was a gentleman of advanced
years he kept himself to himself for the
first couple of hours of the flight and
I assumed that he preferred a quiet
journey rather than to chat to strangers
however I noticed he was wearing a tie
covered in aircraft he must have been
the only person other than the crew who
was wearing a tie so I asked him about
the tie and we started to chat he was
traveling to Grenada to visit a factory
that he owned we soon discovered that we
had a shared interest in aviation and he
explained that he had been in the RAF
during World War two he served in Bomber
Command as a rear gunner or tail-end
Charlie as they were known in Avro
Lancaster bombers he had been on many
missions over Europe and Germany in
particular and had completed his service
without injury
however he explained that although he
fulfilled all his duties as a gunner he
had always harbored a desire to be a
pilot when the war ended he set about
realizing his ambition and gained a
pilot's life
but he didn't stop there he wanted to
make a living out of flying and within a
few years he had started and established
an aerial crop spraying business this
obviously involved a lot of low-level
flying in a variety of locations and he
was very content with his life one day
while at an airfield in Holland he
watched as a crop sprayer aircraft
similar to his own landed seeing someone
in the same business he waited until the
pilot had parked the aircraft then
walked over to introduce himself as he
approached the pilot climbed out of the
cockpit he was a very tall man
well-built and he quickly noticed that
he had a gold front tooth he and the
pilot started a chat and over time they
became friends and business partners
the pilot explained that he'd been a
Stuka pilot for the Luftwaffe during
World War two
and that he had served on all three
fronts the German pilots war service
comprised of missions to bomb the
British in North Africa the Russians on
the eastern front and the Allies on the
Western Front the Stuka was a yonkers ju
87
dive bomber and ground attack aircraft
with a crew of two it was infamous for
not only its devastating effect on
troops tanks and gun emplacements but
also for the sound it made in a dive
created by Jericho trumpets fitted to
its main gear legs imagine what he must
have seen in those years and the
devastation of those battlegrounds the
scale of the battles in world war ii and
the numbers of men and machinery
involved are hard to comprehend today
for example the Germans mobilised 3.8
million men for the invasion of Russia
in 1941 miraculously this German pilot
also ended the war unscathed and
maintained a love of flying so for a few
years there were these two older
adversaries working as business partners
united by a love of aircraft and flying
them
of course it's not unusual for former
enemies to bury the hatchet and
cooperate for their mutual benefit there
are probably many other similar stories
where individuals who are trying to kill
each other a few years previously would
later cooperate build businesses and
marry each other's relations war is not
a normal state of mind for human beings
the vast majority of people recognize
the humanity in others even if we do not
agree with another's politics or choice
of religion or if we simply dislike
their style of dress their language and
their cultural habits we recognize the
humanity in them thanks for watching if
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