I sometimes get the impression that looking through documents and more official records etc (as interesting and as important as they are), the personality of the individuals gets a bit lost. My grandad was always up for a bit of a laugh and going through old letters and other bits and pieces I found some great stories about what he and his mates got up to (aside from the official stuff) during training and as a POW. One example is below (readers of the Eagle may be familiar with this one): “There was a lot of practice flying in the early part of 1944 in preparation for the airborne operations into Europe and these used to become somewhat boring in stages so, to liven up proceedings we would ask the tug aircraft pilot if he noted some Italian prisoners of war working on haystacks to go in flying low and he would pass on one side of the haystack and we in the glider would pass on the other side, with the tow rope dangling between us with the object of trying to knock the poor haystack makers off their haystack.” Anyone have similar stories to share (does not have to be Glider Pilot)???
