Mission

Hi Folks it's me again,

They put me in their bag and we were off to Clewiston which is about100 miles from Naples. What a journey across the Everglades, the car really got a splattering from the flys. So much so that when we arrived we had to scrub the front of the car, fill the washer bottle and clean the radiator not to mention the windscreen. See Tony's picture of the lorry below through the screen.

Wow what a mess, glad I was in my bag.

We then arrived at our destination.

The reason for the detour was we wanted to visit the place, there were lots of them in Florida that trained our pilots during the second world war. At this base alone over 1800 pilots were trained to fly, all with  the help of the American Government who funded the training.  Little is known about this in Britain and sadly all the trainees that survived the war are dying due to old age.

We were greeted by a very nice gentleman who could not do enough for us and ushered us into his board room.

We then studied the archives and learnt a lot about these brave men who on the return to England were shot down.

We found a load of information on the training school which we will bring back to England and find out more.

The base in Clewiston was called Riddle Field, here is a taster of what we found..........

Across the road was a memorial to our brave  men who lost their lives during training in America.

Well what a day for our new friend Henry I am sure that he is proud to be an American and will be pleased to come back to England with us.

He has not had much of a first day but I am sure he and his buddies will be proud..

"Lest we Forget".

Nite, Nite from Henry and his chums.  X X X