The SWASTIKA Secret

[Slade]

TBLightning,

Your mind is getting down to brass tacks. By focusing on the years of my dad's combat experience, you are beginning to separate the wheat from the chaff...to mix metaphors.

And, of course, Old BloodNGuts was in North Africa for Operation Torch.

Slade

[TBLightning492]

Over the last several hours I have started to think that the bombing of Dresden in 1945 might be the key...perhaps the most controversial event of WW2, it would have placed The Bomber into the picture.

Blood And Guts was nearby in the Saar Basin, planning to take Prague.

Other than that, the only connection I can make is D-Day. Blood And Guts was running Operation Fortitude (supposedly intending to invade France by way of Calais), The Bomber was focusing on targets for the French rail network.

Not solid connections, I realize.

Bravo, Slade! Not only do you have me giving my brain a good workout at all hours of the night, I'm having fun and learning quite a bit while doing it!

I can't wait to learn the nature of this secret.

[Slade]

TBLightning,

You're also doing a darn good job. My dad, of course, was back in Canada well before Dresden. Luckily for him, his combat all took place in the Desperate Years, 1941 and 1942, and culminated with the first turning point of the war in Europe - El Alamein - (unless you are of the school that views the 1000 Bomber Raid on Cologne as the first turning point, in which case, he was in on two).

But there doesn't have to be an exact overlap, does there? Just a connection.

So that should give your brain another Rubik's cube to play with.

Slade

[TBLightning492]

You know, it's funny...right after I posted my comment above, I began to think about the Invasion of Sicily, and how the RCAF was involved in that, as was Patton. But that was July 1943. Jack Clarke was in Yorkshire, and had been since March.

So how could he have flight logs and journals connected to Dresden in 1945?

Ouch. It must have been the excitement of all of this history. I must slow down in my thinking and plot things out, Declerq-on-his-coarkboard-style.

Edited to add: I'm a believer in El Alamein being the turning point, because it saw Churchill replace Auchinleck with Montgomery, who was a far superior strategist than his predecessor. The recapturing of Africa led to invading Sicily, which secured most of the Mediterranean. Eventually Germany was forced to pull land and air forces away from the east to fortify the south, opening up the path for the Russians to move further into Europe.

[MarylandManson]

I still don't want to know the Secret. But following clues is fun! And it yields many fascinating tangents. Slade, please let me know if you don't want this stuff cluttering the hunt for clues, and I'll happily cease and desist.

Focusing on 1944 and overlaps between Patton and Bomber Harris, the summer months come into focus. Operation Cobra is of some interest. Soon after, Patton and his Third Army rolled across France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Although Patton wasn't officially part of D-Day/Normandy, the Germans thought for sure his "fake army" would invade at Pas de Calais.

At the Falaise Pocket, American and Canadian troops could have closed the gap and captured thousands of German soldiers...but they didn't.

http://www.normandiememoire.com/NM60Ang ... p09_gb.htm

In his book SOLDIERING FOR FREEDOM, Herman J. Obermayer talks about the Allied bombing of Le Havre, French sabotage of gasoline pipelines, and GIs who were hanged for raping French women.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 35-5655901

And here's something interesting from the Irons...

http://www.maidenfans.com/imc/?url=albu ... ink=albums

Cheers! MM

[Slade]

MM,

The fun is in the tangents. In fact, that's how I plot. I take a topic that interests me and follow where it goes once I get off the beaten path and into the darkness of the thick woods.

So, go where your mind goes.

It's the little details that fascinate me. Though it belongs on the 007 thread, here's what I mean:

"The reason why Bond stops to notice the painting on his way to Dr. No's dining room is because it is Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington that was stolen in 1960 and has never ever been recovered."

How many times have I seen that film without knowing that? And how much does it tells us about Dr. No: "I take what I want."

Same with the compass buttons off my dad's combat gear. I have yet to find a person who doesn't think that is cool.

Slade

[MarylandManson]

Looking at all those Blackhawk covers, the theme of jet propulsion emerges. Here's a very detailed link about the Messerschmidt Me-262, a beautiful aircraft no matter who built and operated it. It's amazing how relatively early in avaiation history people were thinking about jet propulsion. Also, those German jets must have been a terror to the Allied bomber crews who saw them streaking through formations and spouting cannon fire.

http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft ... aft_id=108

Interesting tidbit from this link:

"Late in the war, the Japanese were shipped a complete Me-262 by submarine. They began work on a copy of the fighter, designated the 'Ki-201 Karyu (Fire Dragon),' but it was never completed."

Cheers! MM

[MarylandManson]

[Slade]

[MarylandManson]

[Slade]

[fizz kick]

[EZ Rhino]

[Slade]

Sladists,

An entry in my father's Pilot's Flying Log has puzzled me:

1942. Feb 12. Daylight raid on the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau." 10/10 cloud.

Because I recognized neither of those names - unlike all the other targets in the book - I assumed from the quote marks that my dad didn't either, and so he had written them phonetically. Believing them to be lesser targets, I left it at that.

Since you armchair strategists did such a good job with the clues I've been dropping, I thought I'd feed you a red herring or two. What good's a mystery without a red herring? So I went back to the start of my dad's combat raids, and gave you his "1st ops," the attack on Nuremberg, the heart of the Reich.

Next, I went to his "2nd ops":

1941. Oct. 20. Ops to Wilhelmshaven. "Bags of fun" - Caught in searchlights, but not held.

When I typed "Wilhelmshaven" into Google for info on what that was about, it came back with a connection to the Bismarck. Thus, the song above. Actually, the hull of the Bismarck wasn't laid there, but the hull of the Tirpitz was. And as I followed the links, I came across this:

http://hmshood.com/ship/history/bshood/BSHood.html

Four paragraphs down in the preface, you'll see what caught my eye.

Okay, Strategists. Operation Cerberus. There's another hunt.

Slade

[PohlSE]