[OM] A tale of Australian aviation for the flyers here...

[Andrew Fildes]

A flimsy excuse for posting a girlie pic but amusing at least. 
The young lady here -
http://www.pbase.com/afildes/image/129529700
 - came in the other day to do some retro pin-ups. A concept compromised 
somewhat by the tattoos but she belongs to an odd subculture of girls who like 
ink but don't go in for the conventional burlesque style popular these days. 
Lovely girl in ohsomany ways. 
Anyway, I was interested in the image on her left shoulder - it's a depiction 
of a WW2 Beaufort bomber dropping beer bottles. Most unusual.
Turns out her late grandfather was a member of RAAF 71 Wing who carried out one 
of the last strikes of the war. Gun crew on a Beaufort. There is some argument 
about whether they went ahead with the run despite knowing that the Japanese 
had surrendered. Anyway, as well as bombs they dropped empty beer bottles with 
razor blades in their throat to act as screamers, hoping to persuade the 
Japanese troops below to jump into the croc infested rivers. She had the tatt 
done as a personal memorial to her grandfather.
700 Bristol Beauforts were built in Melbourne.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb271/is_4_47/ai_n29322108/
http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/museums/abbr.htm

Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx




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