Memories still flying high
One of my favourite sayings is: “It isn’t over until it’s over – and then it isn’t over”. This has certainly been the case regarding the book “Night Hawk” which I wrote in 1984 about the life of the Second World War night fighter ace who was my wife’s father [his story here]. I keep thinking the story is behind me, but it keeps coming back with something new.
This afternoon, my wife and I were visited by John Weber of Bushey Heath. Now aged 75, he was 10 in 1942 when his father evacuated the family to Buckinghamshire and rented out the family house in Hendon, north London, to a Czech pilot called Flight Lieutenant Karel Kuttelwascher (my wife’s farher).
John recalls a newspaper photograph – which he believes was taken at his home – of the Czechoslovak President in exile Eduard Benes presenting a Czech War Cross to Kuttelwascher on 11 August 1942. He would love to locate a copy of the photo to assist him in a painting which he would like to create, but sadly we have never seen such a photo, still less have a copy.
We were able to show John some of our many records of the exploits of Karel Kuttelwascher – but he was able to add to this archive with something totally new to us.
He gave us a DVD of a History Channel programme on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Now we were well aware that the BBMF has painted one of its Hurricane aircraft in the colours of Kuttelwascher’s aircraft [I blogged about this here]. But this programme had wartime footage of Kuttelwascher which we’ve never seen.
In the short clip, he is asked by an interviewer which is his favourite German aircraft and he responds: “Well, I don’t mind. I like them all going down”. We have seen a tiny film clip of him and we’ve heard a tiny audio clip of him, but this is the first time we have seen and heard him in the same piece of media.
Vee was only 15 when her father, the wartime hero, died and she naturally treasures such recollections of him.
John has managed to obtain a copy of my 1984 book “Night Hawk” which he wishes to present to the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon since apparently their copy is falling apart. Vee and I were happy to sign it for him.