M5Clive

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The Kennet Valley MVT Area Sec - Wendy Stevens (on right) and Theresa Soley (on left)

Theresa delt with all of the vehicle bookings (amongst many other duties) for the event and Mum acted as K Brigstock's secretary over the weekend, along with organising and sorting all manner of duties during the organsing process. The black Lab 'Ike' is the Area's mascot and has stastically attended more Area meetings than any other member!

One of the unsung characters of the event - Dave Stevens.

Not able to participate on any of the convoys or parades through the town due to limited man power at base camp, Dad's duties included manning the main entrance gate ensuring that only those who needed access to the field got in! As you can see from his formal dress, he is normally more at home building his model railway, and is seen here dressed for the occasion as a railway ganger from up-north - His wippet is just out of shot!

Chief Dispatch Rider and Convoy Controller throughout the weekend - Ed Abbot

Pictured leaving Littlecote House aboard his trusty and faultless Matchless

This thread is soly for pictures of the people that organised and participated in the Route to Victory event................Every one of them being damn good eggs. What pictures do you have? - Post away.

The man on a mission - Keith Brigstock, chief organiser of RtV

Did you know they also made a film about his exploits at Ramsbury this weekend.

It was almost entitled - 'A Brigstock too Far!' - then the weather improved!

I just didn't post all 350 of mine!! but I think Clive was the most trigger happy as I think he was well over 1000!

 

Steve

That's what I understood but of course I went for quality:whistle:..............

and failed ...miserably:embarrassed:

That really made me laugh Degsy - Out loud - A great line..........

For those wishing to put a name to the face of story-teller..............

Degsy - Up to his eyeballs in muck (literally) and bullets!

Hi Nick

Welcome to the mad-house!

I'm glad you liked last weekends convoys - Did you see the parade through Marlborough High Street? If not a piccy is shown below.

Marlborough High Street - Saturday afternoon

I was also born in Savernake and raised in Marlborough for 27 of my 33 years, then moved to East Anglia in 2002. I was the person responsible for the three convoy routes over the weekend, which is why they took in so much good country, because its my old stamping ground.

The Grand Avenue - Savernake Forest

I roughed the routes out on a map and then Ed Abbott fine tuned the final routes and contacted all the relevant land owners to request permission for 60+ WWII waggons to roll across their land - No mean feat! Furthermore, he then organised his Dispatch Riders to marshals us on all the chosen roads throughout the entire weekend!

Private roads between Littlecote House and Ramsbury Airfield

Did you see this weeks Gazette & Hereald newspaper - Nigel did us a brilliant 2 page spread with photos.

Cheers

Clive D Stevens

Thanks for the excellent piccys. It was great that our paths crossed - albeit briefly!

Got lots of pics but couldn't get one of Jess on the Sherman because I was holding on tight myself!

Great piccys Steve.

From my view-point, the only real let-down of the w/e was at Netheravon. I was so dissapointed that the C-47 crew didn't give us a nice top-side pass before lining-up on finals. I think it was to do with the parachutists operating in our general area of the airfield.

I reckon the Zulu crossing where the 'Plains Tour' guys were parked would have had a far better view of the C-47 landing (if they were parked there at the time) than we did nestled behind the hangar!

They made up for it at Ramsbury on the Monday afternoon however. Even after the event had finished and the C-47 had done its display and jump, on its return back to Oxford from Netheravon, it purposly came back to the show field whilst we were packing-up and did a gentle 360 around the entire village in the late afternoon sunshine. It sounded fantastic and the outline of that legendary silouette against the backdrop of the old airfield high upon the hill was a sight to behold.

I did wonder to myself how many 437th Troop Carrier Group veterans were also along for the ride.......................

You can't believe how pleased I was that the two events managed to cross paths, albeit briefly. I'm not sure if you were parked-up by chance or whether Tony had carefully picked his spot hoping we would steam by, but I would have loved to have seen the convoy from standing atop of the two Wards with the Birds Eye View.

We were down on numbers a little on the Sunday convoy. The International Half Track dropped a valve on the Saturday evening, so we thought it unwise to trundle it all the way to Netheravon on Sunday and Jim Clark was suffering from severe toothache and had to leave the Mack at Ramsbury. Rex Ward had also left off early by then to head over to Andover and of course all the tanks naturally didn't venture out that far either.

In the future, we must make sure the events don't clash again! It was our fault, as HMVF had the same weekend last year if I'm not mistaken.

A couple of pics of the convoys below.

PS - Did you see anything of the C-47 landing and taking off from Netheravon?

Well the event is over.

So many faces, so many vehicles and so much changeable weather..........but a total success none the less.

I took some 1250 photographs and now have the job of editing the rubbish out.

I will post just a handful for now which I consider sums up the event pretty well.

Keith Brigstock and the committee of the new Kennet Valley Area MVT are to be applauded for undertaking such an ambitious project and pulling it off in fantastic style.

All of the participants that made Route to Victory a success are also to be commended, many of whom will read these threads as members of HMVF.

The pictures speak for themselves.

The Chancellor rubs his hands together.....

Rollin Rollin Rollin.........

Kelly's Hero's go swimming......

Dust - A signpost for the enemy to spot.......

HMVF on-tour.................

Gooney-Bird and cargo...........

C-47 Skytrain over the Kennet Valley

Jumping into Camp Ramsbury in M-41 Jumpsuits - The first time since 1944

Lovejoy, Tinker, Eric and Charlie Gimbert......!

Glastonbury moved to Wiltshire for the day...............

Come on now Degsy!

In the words of Captain Mainwaring "Thats hardly fighting talk is it Frazer and I won't tolerate these negative attitudes on active service!"

You can only do what you can do, but would a couple of bottles of Lucozade help?

No sorry Jack - I wont be in your tent. Break the news to Mrs Beckett gently won't you

Ok guys - I am still alive and kicking............Well just about.

Right, the planned departure time for the Saturday convoy from Camp Ramsbury is 09.30. Yes their will be a drivers briefing beforehand Jessie, but fortunately not at 06-30, but by golly wasn't it worth the early start!

Clive

In 1993 to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Memphis Belle's last mission, myself and brother neil attended a unique evening in Hitchin town Hall.

It was the showing of the original William Wyler wartime documentary Memphis Belle, in the company of Col Robert Morgan, pilot of the Belle and star of the original film.

It was kind of surreal to watch this film on the big screen and have the pilot shown in the film sat a few feet from ourselves. He signed my B-17 model, under the wing, which I still have today and is a treasured possession.

Sadly Robert K Morgan died a few years back, having tripped-up a pavement at his local airport and broke his neck. He died a few days afterwards in hospital.

What a tragic end to someone who had seen all that combat, both flying from England with the 91st Bomb Group at Bassingbourn and also flying B-29's Superforts against the Japanese.

The Belle was named after his then girlfriend - Margaret Polk. He never in-fact married her.

The most wonderful man ever associated with the Belle, was the crew chief Joe Gambrone. He was the unsung hero in the 324th Squadron who kept her flying all those missions, but went almost entirely undocumented by Hollywood both back then and in 1989. I have a poor video copy of an address he made to the 91st Bomb Group Memorial Association reunion in 1989 - It is just hillarious and a very moving tribute to the many crews that flew aboard his Belle, not just the men that went home to the hero's welcome.

The only person who will truly know the answer to that is pictured in the photograph above!

 

 

Maurice is a quiet unassuming character. The first anyone tends to know about future plans/projects is when you see them in the workshop. But he doesn't less moss gathered under his feet, thats for sure.

2009 would be good for me, but would all the antics in Normandy that year detract from another succesful Operation Bolero?

Hi N.O.S.

Sorry I can't find your actual name, which I think I may have mentioned just once before, but in the words of Basil Fawty, "I think i got away with it!"

I flew aboard the Collins Foundation B-17 G Nine-O-Nine eleven years ago. I found them to be exceptionally friendly, helpful and literally bent-over backwards when they realised we had journeyed from across the pond to take the flight.

So much so, they had us on-board 10 mins before everyone else and up on the flight-deck stood behind the pilots for pre-flight, taxi and take-off and subsequent landing. After we were up, we were let loose, down into the nose, back to the waist, up and peering out of the radio roof hatch. It was 50 mins duration and just awesome.

I had my A2 jacket painted with Nine-O-Nine on the back and offered it to the pilot after the flight as a gift, because he had not only made my day, but made my life........! He wouldn't accept it because he said he just couldn't, no matter how much he admired it. The pilot was Jimmy Leawauld who I later found out ownes what they calla warbird farm in Florida.

This is where you buy a house on a housing estate which has a double garage one side and a hangar the other side. A runway connects to the housing estate. A multi-millionaire, but a very normal and gracious individual, who's decisions on the day allowed me a flight far above and beyond my wildest expectations.

I will get the photos transferred one day and post them - but their not digital of course.

which reminds me that I must get another batch of photograpes signed by 'M' ( as we, the members, know him by).

 

 

Are these photograpes the seedless variety or gloss or matt finish :-o :-o :-o

A few photographs from Maurice's last open day of 2007 for HMVF'ers to enjoy. I was working on fitting some gutters to my log-cabin when my boss rang me to say that three warbirds had just flown over Ipswich in formation. Whilst he was still on the phone, two P-51's and a P-40 flew directly over my head - I live 20 miles North of Ipswich and it had taken just a matter of minutes for the aircraft to travel the journey!

10 minutes later a Spitfire flew over heading in the same direction. Enough was enough!! I downed tools, packed my camera and headed up to Hardwick to investigate!

The only person who will truly know the answer to that is pictured in the photograph above!

As a matter of interest, on the Monday afternoon after Operation Bolero, Maurice called me and asked me to pop down for a coffee. He thought the Bolero convoy and visit to his airstrip at Hardwick was "One of the best days they had ever had up the airfield" and commented that the Bolero attendees round of applause that was warmly given when he landed-in after the buzz-job was humbling. "I've never had a reception quite like it" was the words used!

I do have plans to feature Maurice in even greater interaction with the Military Vehicles in the next Operation Bolero, probably 2009 or 2010 - I've not yet decided!

As for the above P-51, this is painted up as an aircraft that flew with the 339th Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force, from Fowlmere, located a couple of miles to the West of Duxford Airfield in Cambridgeshire.

Although a large proportion of the aircraft is newly built, the restoration is based around the wreckage that Maurice purchased of an original 339th aircraft, called Marinell, and crashed in France in 1944. The wing section is now currently in his workshop being fitted-out, just down the road from my house, and the fuselage, as you can see, is completed and now transfered to the airfield in Norfolk.

It is hoped that the first test flight of Marinell will take place before the year is out.

Nice pics of the semi-unit Rick.

I would presume that the gasoline tanker is either being hauled by a Federal or Autocar tractor unit. Am in the throws of currently trying to obtain for a friend a semi trailer, single axle wooden bodied stake trailer. They make a really rare combination on the show circuits over here. Looks like a twin engined bobcat type, Lockeed Electra type aircraft poking its nose into the picture, but Jessie will know for sure.

Are these pics taken stateside or the `ETO?