Who are your personal heroes?

Bruce,

Good post. How wonderful it is to be able to think 'what would so and so do in this situation' and find oneself coming up with the solution and how sad so many of us never get to model ourselves on anyone better than the dysfunctional. Your prof. Mitchell was indeed made of the stuff of heroes.

In no particular order:

Bill Wilson
Leonard Cheshire
Peter Osgood
Bobby Moore
Oskar Barnack
Muddy Waters
Count von Stauffenberg
Eric Morecambe
Tommy Cooper
P G Wodehouse
George Orwell
J R Hartley

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Originally posted by ROTF:

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Originally posted by Unstoppable:
Captain Kangeroo

A true hero - who doesn't get enough credit IMHO.

A true innovator. I mean, how many guys think to have their jacket tailored so's they can put a stuffed animal in their pocket ?


Unstoppable

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Excellent Johan. Did you know a film was made about Edelstam last year? The Black Pimpernel I would very much like to see this film.

Stop Press. It is released soon here

Yes. I'm eagerly waiting for it to come out on DVD.

JohanR

I've always admired Barnes Wallace (I know it's war stuff)but his brain power allowed him to do what is now "thinking outside the box".
RJ Mitchell also for his thoughts on how to make an aeroplane faster and in doing so design one of the prettiest killing machines ever built.
Almost any of the fighter pilots and bomber crews of WW2 I also find inspiring.
Without those sort of people we might not have had the heroes of the 50's onwards.

Howard

Bomber Harris
Beethoven
Alfred Brendel
Charles Darwin
Viktoria Mullova
Mick Parry

EW

I read "Reach for the sky" as a kid in the mid 60s and found the story of Douglas Bader absolutely fascinating. History hasn't treated him very kindly (i.e. he was apparently a reactionary unpleasant git) and I probably wouldn't get on very well with him if I could meet him now. However hard times breed hard characters and I'm sure he was an inspirational character in his day.

I too read 'Reach for the sky' as a kid and I loved the film (Muriel Pavlov who played Bader's wife was my first crush)and yes he was regarded as an appallingly arrogant man but my view of him changed recently when it was revealed that he almost certainly knew the name of the pilot who shot him down (he falsified reports to protect the man) and he took the secret with him to his grave and never showed the slightest hostility to the pilot who was a member of his own squadron! Bader for all his faults was certainly a hero imo.

"Douglas Bader" is supposedly a slang term in bowls for a shot which ends up two feet short...

Acad (who likes black humour)

Munch, he crashed once, losing his legs as a result, and then was shot down over France, leading to his capture.

I think it would be appropriate in this thread to pay tribute to Jane Tomlinson, who has just died. She has used the last seven years since being diagnosed with terminal cancer (way beyond the prognosis) working tirelessly for raising awareness and funds (£millions) for charities.

R.I.P. Jane. A good example of humanity.

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
I think it would be appropriate in this thread to pay tribute to Jane Tomlinson, who has just died. She has used the last seven years since being diagnosed with terminal cancer (way beyond the prognosis) working tirelessly for raising awareness and funds (£millions) for charities.

100% agreed - a gutsy, example to us all.

I don't really have many personal heroes but I would have to say Bill Hicks.....just for his outlook on life and humanity. Not very PC but hey thats not whats needed these days anyway imho.

Ryan

Three more of my heroes:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Noor Inayat Khan

and

Edith Cavell

A couple of climbers I admire:

Herman Buhl

His achievements chronicled in 'The Nanga Parbat Challenge' are just breathtaking. A real tough guy.

Goran Kropp

Anyone you not only climbs Everest, but does it solo, without oxygen, and without Sherpa support - and even cyles the 8,000 miles each way from his home gets my respect.

Cheers

worm

Well, as a personal hero i.e. someone I knew, I'd nominate my Grandfather, Fred. Like others here perhaps, for his actions and survival during some bitter experiences in WWII. It wasn't until shortly before his death he started talking much about his experiences. He was an ordinary soldier in the infantry but when he (and a former colleague of his) told me some of the things they went through for years, you can only wonder how they managed it.

He served in France in the early part of the war and was involved in some heavy fighting until being evacuated from Dunkirk. He said at that time a lot of it was remote fighting i.e. pot shots at each other from a distance but it was "...bloody scary, looking over your shoulder all the time" when moving back North. He felt that those in control knew bugger all about what they were doing, which was even scarier, as common sense went out the window. He saw no victory in the evacuation just utter defeat, hurt, sorrow for his dead and mangled mates and total misery at being buggered by those in charge. Like the world had ended.

After a period back in the UK, he went back into action in North Africa. He learnt a lot more about war there but also how much smarter the Germans were at it. For a long time he and his mates thought they were going to face another heavy defeat and lived with that fear and their previous BEF experiences every single day. He also saw greater levels of savagery, like somehow the stakes were higher. He was shot in the stomach and would have bled to death but he was picked up by a couple of mates and taken to safety (his friend was the one who told me that he got shot because his unit had been pinned down for hours by a couple of armoured vehicles so he and another fella decided to launch a two man assault on them, figuring they couldn't just stay like that. I didn't say he was smart...) He was moved to Iceland to recover from his injury, which was a miserable experience for him, lonely and sad, he felt like he was waiting for death.

And then they sent him back in! This time back to France, just after D-Day. This is what he talked about the least. Here he saw and experienced things which even a few years ago made his voice crack and eyes water. More incompetence (he thought Monty was a tit), ego polishing (he lost a lot of mates waiting for the French & DeGaul to move up from the rear so they could enter Paris) and what he called 'lack of nerve'. They once took some woods from the Germans after really heavy, close up fighting. They were relieved by an American unit who promptly lost the ground he's fought to take and left their wounded and dead behind them (contrary to what you might see in the movies). So his own unit had to go back in and retake the wood, losing more of their own troops and then once secure, pick up the dead Americans (I'm afraid he didn't have much time for them either...). He fought pretty much constantly for close on 8 months then shipped home towards the end of the war, eventually demobbed and quietly went back into his decorating and gilding business to no glory, fanfare or celebration. He's dead now (cancer). My Gran has his medals.

Good post jamie. Thank you.

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I'm not one for heroes, as a rule...

Thanks Jamie. Your post illustrates one reason for prefacing my post on this thread with the above remark. How many ordinary heroes like your grandfather do we forget in our rush to anoint the few? It could even be argued that simply leading a half-decent life is an act of heroism in certain circumstances (e.g. Nazi Germany, perhaps). And from a wider perspective still, the small sacrifices most parents make for their children every day, could be described as heroic.

The other reason I qualified my first post on this thread is that some heroes turn out to have feet of clay, on closer inspection. Was Douglas Baader a reactionary misanthrope, beyond the pages of his story of heroism? Does it make him any less heroic if he was?

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Originally posted by acad tsunami:
I too read 'Reach for the sky' as a kid and I loved the film (Muriel Pavlov who played Bader's wife was my first crush)and yes he was regarded as an appallingly arrogant man but my view of him changed recently when it was revealed that he

I met DB when he attended a Dinner Night at Sandhurst. He was a great character and did not strike me as an arrogant person. A forceful personality, sure, but not arrogant.

I met his uncle, the late Wing Commander Gordon-Burge, originally RFC. He and his wife lived together in an old peoples home at which my mother worked; an old school gent.

He and his wife of some 40 years passed away within 24 hours of each other.

Oh yes; on D Day + 60 I had the distinct pleasure of meeting various old boys including Wally Parr, ( pictured here, centre, with some handsome beast and Dougie Allen. ) Both of these gents where in the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry and where amongst the first 100 or so soldiers to land on D Day, at what is now known as Pegasus Bridge.

Wally was in the very first glider to land, and had a rather lively time. passed away in december, a most definite "geezer".

Any and all of the 500,00 American soldiers who fought bravely and died during WW2 so that Europe might be free.



Charlie

I would think that it is reasonable to say that anyone who fought in the Second World War, whether American or otherwise in the struggle against Fascism, Nazism, and Nationalism - whether they died or not - is worthy of our respect, and admiration. Often I think as a whole we would do well to remember them a bit more.

Maybe among the bravest and least rewarded were the Poles, who after all did not gain freedom until the Russian yoke was lifted many dcades after the end of the War, and yet who were some of the fiercest fighters and airmen among the Allies. There other less known examples as well.

Bravery and worthiness of respect is not the monopoly of one Nationality or even a selected group of them. There were supremely brave people who opposed Nazism and Fascism from within and they are surely as worthy of our respect as anyone else... Doing the correct thing was possible and for all, and some of the bravest stories may never find popular circulation.

Sincerely, George

And to illustrate that, among the brave Poles on 'our' side, let's not forget that many Poles fought with the Nazis in the war and before the invasion, many Poles were busy kicking the sh*t out of the Jewish and Gypsy population themselves.

One great sadness for Norwegians is the fact that a small minority were happy to fight for the Nazis. It is one of the terrible things that a great many of these "traitors" were subject to the death sentence in the two years following the end of hostilities. I don't think that alters for one second that the Poles were our staunchest Ally from day one in the War and were of course involved for a few days before the UK following the Nazi invasion of their country. I doubt if there is one country in Nazi occupied Europe that did not find individuals prepared to fight for the Nazis or indeed denounce Jews.

The story of Warfare [or even politics] is never clean, and there are always cases where people do terrible things. The business of War Trials is invariably one of Victor's Justice, however it is viewed. The Nazis had considerable support throoughout Europe in certain political, media, and commercial quarters before the War, and even in the US, and perish the thought the UK! IBM provided the card index system that was used by the Nazis to file the Jewish population, and even Britsh parts were suppled for use in German engines till very close to the start of the War. Amal carburretors on BMW motorcycles for example. We cannot expect everyone to be Saints to see that their fellow nationals were worhty as a whole of our admiration, and respect.

I hope that contextualises you comment, James! George

PS: And what ever we think of Stalin in Russia, there is absolutley no doubt that the bravest and toughest [and most costly in terms of casualties] fighting in the European theatre of activities was between Russians and Germans. It is all, to easy and has been quite fashionable to down-play the crucial significance of the Russian Alliance with the West, and also it is unfashionable to consider the Russian record on those they considered undersiable as well!

It is also well to remember that the Russians were at that time such a fearful foe that some people found it preferably to side with the Nazis!