A news story about some of the secret behind-the-scenes work (signals intelligence and radio navigation) done by the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (the Wrens) during WWII.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/d-day-code-breakers-women-1.5159789
You May Be A WWII Junkie
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Aircraft Directors. On the Flight Deck aka Bears.
The one at the very bottom right could be a number of things though. It is hard to tell his jersey color.Thanks for supplying the position name. On my screen the guy’s outfit looks kind of yellow in colour, which matches what can be seen at 21:00 here:
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Oh for sure it’s a high-visibility Aircraft Director. It just looks funny! :P
Those signals, however, were standardized and weren’t viewed as a laughing matter by anyone on the dangerous environment of a flight deck where one mistake can result in someone being cut in half by a propeller
LOL - Absolutely agree.
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By coincidence, just yesterday I was rewatching the 1944 film “Wing and a Prayer” with Dana Andrews, which includes a scene where an aircraft director is giving signals to a nervous carrier pilot who’s preparing for his first take-off after being on stress leave. He leans forward, arms hanging straight down, hands facing each other, fingers curled into scoops, and repeatedly swings his arms to bring his hands close together then far apart. Translation: You forgot to close your bomb bay doors. The pilot fixes the mistake. The plane director signals the plane to move forward a bit, then sees something else he doesn’t like. He extends his arms horizontally to full length, palms together, fingers flat, hands horizontal, then repeatedly opens and closes his hands, using the heels of his hands like a hinge. Translation: You forgot to extend your flaps. The pilot fixes that mistake too. Up on the carrier’s island, the ship’s Air Ops officer is getting mightily annoyed with the pilot for messing up his preflight checklist so badly. The pilot eventually takes off, but misjudges his airspeed and immediately ends up in the drink; he gets fished out by a destroyer, while his plane sinks. I can just imagine the kind of non-regulation hand signals that the Air Ops officer might have wanted to give this guy at that point, but the 1940s Hollywood production code wouldn’t have allowed that kind of thing to be shown onscreen.
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Dana Andrews was wonderful in Sink the Bismarck BTW, as well as that episode of Twelve O’clock High.
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@Imperious:
Dana Andrews was wonderful in Sink the Bismarck
Actually, that was Dana Wynter in Sink the Bismarck. She was indeed great in her role as a WREN officer. She was so patient and understanding towards her SOB boss in that role that it was quite a shock to later see her play Burt Lancaster’s arrogant, tongue-lashing wife in Airport.
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Oh righto. :-D
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You may be a WW2 Junkie if when playing other war games like Battlefront Heroes on facebook you notice the level 1 tanks look like Panzer IIs, the level 2 tanks look like Panzer IIIs, looking at tanks other people have you see Tiger Is
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If you were watching Discovery Channel’s Wings and Field of Armor instead of Saturday morning cartoons as a teen, you may be a WW2 junkie.
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@ABWorsham:
If you were watching Discovery Channel’s Wings and Field of Armor instead of Saturday morning cartoons as a teen, you may be a WW2 junkie.
I’ll 2nd that.
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If you grew up watching Jonh Wayne movies
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If mash potatoes generally cause you to think of potato smasher grenades, you may be a WWII junkie. Just happened to me in the kitchen 8-)
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@ABWorsham:
If mash potatoes generally cause you to think of potato smasher grenades, you may be a WWII junkie. Just happened to me in the kitchen 8-)
Lol now that’s bad…
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Lol ><
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You may be a junkie if your vanity plates on your car are 1181942.
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My son had some Axis and Allies submarines out on table next to his tablet. I told him, your tablet makes a great U-boat pen.
That makes you a WW2 junkie.
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If you see the headline of the article linked below and immediately wonder why they stuck an “s” on the end of Sir Arthur’s nickname, you might be a WWII junkie:
https://winnipegsun.com/sports/football/bombers-harris-earns-star-of-the-week
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LOL !
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If you actually know what the War of 1941 is.
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@Caesar-Seriona said in You May Be A WWII Junkie:
If you actually know what the War of 1941 is.
And if you know that there were two of them: the Russian one and the American one.
Also, if you know in which country you can (supposedly) find a few small commemorative monuments to the war of “1939-1940”.
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If you recognize someone as looking like Albert Kesselring in a drive thru, you might be a WW2 junkie.
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