OK, Chuck's gone and done it now. Created that great dambuster Lancaster.

I was down in the Stash Dungeon the other day searching for a kit, and ran across two boxes for which I could not remember the contents. Opened them up and what do you know? Inside was my Tamiya dambuster, a project from 2012 that was going to be presented in May 2013 for the 70th anniversary.

Brought the boxes in and checked them One had the wings - I had finished sanding all the putty on those #$%! engines, and was ready for Mr. Surfacer; no wonder it went in the box. The fuselage is ready to go with everything masked. And there is the Xtradecal 70th Anniversary of 617 Squadron decal sheet with David Maltby's airplane, the one in which he breached the Mohne Dam. Soo... back from the dead.

In the meantime, I have read more about the raid, and about Gibson in particular, in Sir Max Hastings' "Warriors." The real Gibson was 180 degrees out from the RAF Official Propaganda image that Paul Brickhill put into his book and Richard Todd cemented into every airplane nut's consciousness 63 years ago in the movie. His crew didn't come with him to 617 - they couldn't get away fast enough! And nearly everyone who ever dealt with him detested him. This fits with the comments by the 617 survivor in "Secrets of the Dead" and the less-than-glowing portrait in Johnny Johnson's "Wing Leader" regarding an unpleasant encounter at an RAF officer's club.

To me as a writer and historian, this is far more interesting. A guy like Richard Todd is easy to like, respect, and follow. But a guy people can't stand? What was it that brought along all those Bomber Command aces, guys who had nothing left to prove? This may be why Sir Peter Jackson's movie is on hold, since he hired Stephen Fry to write the screenplay and went out of his way to proclaim it would be "100% historically accurate." Would an audience raised on the first movie buy Gibson as "a right little English schoolboy sod", as he was described in "Secrets of the Dead"?

Anyway, cleaning up to get back at it. Posting here is a good guarantee that there won't be any more backsliding. Photos to come.

Pretty much the story of the mission is as it's been told. To me, as a writer of drama who creates characters, a character who is otherwise someone one would cross the street to avoid, who is able to get others to follow him on a dangerous mission (50% casualties!) is an interesting person. If any screenwriter could figure that out, I'm Stephen Fry would be the guy.

As an aside, I listen to a lot of podcasts and talking books as I build (not quite Glenn Miller) - here is the dramatised version, as broadcast in Aus in 1954 - Brickhill introduces it.

https://archive.org/details/TheDambusters1954OtrAustralianRadio

Interesting, your "day gig", Paul. Certainly true what you say about "difficult" kids (said as someone who was "difficult.") I finally found out exactly what it was Mr. Field did for me - the only good teacher I ever had - when I had lunch with his daughter and son-in-law, the parents of my screenwriting writing partner on the project we are doing. As they were leaving the lunch we had, she (his daughter) told me she had asked Mr. Field if he really remembered me and he said "Yes, he was this great kid." I realized that was what he had done for me - treated me as a "great kid" - a term no one else ever used with me, and an attitude no one else, family or otherwise, ever showed, and words no one ever used to describe me.

Yes, is it karmically very cool that I would get in touch with Mr. Field 60 years later, and when he found out I was a screenwriter, he asked me to meet his beloved grandson, who had given up a "good job" in finance (that he hated) to come to Hollywood and try to become a screenwriter. Would I meet with him and find out if he was "wasting his life"? No one can determine that; the closest is that perhaps he didn't have the talent. It took me about halfway through lunch to realize I was talking to one of the most talented screenwriters I'd ever met (just not noticed yet) and that if I was still the Supervising Producer at Hope Street Productions I would be offering him an assignment. We're now working together on a project I can't reveal (when I do, if I do, you will all be overjoyed), that wouldn't be working if Mr. Field's grandson wasn't working with Mr. Field's best student. It's totally "karmic."

Teachers can be a fairly paranoid bunch, Tom! I have stood in front of some pretty tough classes in South East London, and copping flak and still treating those serving it up as developing and complex humans is sometimes tough. Especially at the start of a career. Knowing the issues generally reduces the animosity towards the kids in all but those people who shouldn’t really be in the job. It is (normally) not a matter of life and death, and you get plenty of ‘goes’ at making a difference. When kids remember you years later for the right reasons it is one of the most rewarding elements of the job. My three most enjoyable roles involved guiding teachers in an autism unit (although my guidance was where possible to get the kids ready to go back into mainstream classes pronto), in a pupil referral unit (last chance saloon for the disruptive, or haven for the disturbed) and as a teacher myself working with the Gypsy/Roma/Traveller community and getting them engaged in schooling to prepare them for ‘modern’ life while hanging on to their culture. I’ve taught high achievers too, but I like the ‘difficult’ and worldly ones - who are mostly ‘great kids’, just different or disadvantaged. In the overwhelming majority of cases the kids are never the problem - it’s the parents or the teachers...!

Your version of events is fantastic - we are always trying to bring back ‘success stories’ into schools to show the kids that change and learning are life-long - but your connection is heart warming - you must be very content for it to have worked out that way. We will all look forward to the fruits for sure!

Deja vu, that looks so familiar

Well, after 18 hours with no internet (something must have popped at my ISP in the power outages, it was all over S. California) until just now, I ended up proceeding on the model. Painting was done yesterday, decaling today. It's still in sub-assemblies so I'll get some photos and get them up.

ROFLMAO! Yeah, the ethernet was still working. So we had cable. But I worked on the model and finished a great book: "The Invisible Bridge" by my friend Rick Perlstein. Having been involved in politics 40+ years ago, having a guy really bring back 70s politics was "educational." As bad as things are right now, they're just as bad as they were back then, except one party to the conversation didn't understand what was going on then and doesn't now. And was as awful then as now.