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Saturday, August 10, 2013

As, Belgium Revisited

When Bill and I went to As and Opglabbeek in Belgium three and a half years ago to see the place where Dad had bailed out of his plane, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get back. But I did and Holly did too. Our friends Jemp and Lony drove to the Mardaga on Monday, August 5 where we met our old friend Karel. Jemp told us that my Dad was his first hero – how about that! He said that Dad didn’t say very much about his being wounded and shot down but I guess that was enough for a teenager who had read all about the Spitfire pilots.

We walked in the hotel and there was the plaque that my cousin John had designed and had made hanging on the wall in the lobby. And Karel had arranged to have two pieces of the plane framed to hang beside the plaque. It was quite moving to see it again.
 
 
 
We met Karel who took us to all the spots – Y32-Ophoven airfield, the school where the officers and pilots stayed and where the hospital was that treated the wound in Dad’s right arm. And then we went up behind the Mardaga to see the crash site of Dad’s Spitfire. I had seen the area very briefly in the winter of 2010 and did not walk in but did this time. I felt kind of odd and awed by it. There’s nothing to see on the ground. There are trees now, there weren’t any back then. It’s very peaceful now. 
 
 

We all went out to supper as the Mardaga’s restaurant was closed on Mondays. Karel told us that his and William’s book on the war will be coming out in 2016. They are finishing up some interviews and the mayor has most generously agreed to pay for the publishing. This book was started, in part, as a result of our visit three years ago. People have just now started talking about what happened in their community all those years ago.

Since Lony and Jemp had not heard all the details that Karel had been sending to us, they asked lots of questions and it was good to hear it all again.
 
 

Karel had brought 3 pieces of the plane with him for me to take home. There is a pump, an exploded piece of ammo and a piece of aluminum which could have come from the body or the wing. I will be bringing these back to Canada.
 


 

There are not enough words to thank Karel and all the other people who have helped me and my family understand and know more about who our Dad was in a vital part of his life.

And for those who haven’t seen the whole story of my Mom and Dad’s life during WWII, you can go to that blog which was done over a period of years – Dad’s flight logs, Mom’s diaries, photos and the story of the 2010 trip to commemorate the end of Dad’s war - http://philtripe.blogspot.com/.

1 comment:

  1. More on the details of Grandpa (Phil) Tripe's crash:
    Karel explained to us that the Spitfire pilots wore their parachutes strapped to their behinds. The plane seats are only a metal frame and the parachute was the cushion. This makes mobility difficult when a pilot has a hard-packed square strapped to the waist and legs.
    In order to 'eject' from the plane (with one wing on fire and failing - the right wing), Grandpa would have had to slide the cockpit cover open, stand up onto the metal frame seat, step out onto the wing, jump and then pull the chute. There is no 'eject button' that shoots the pilot up and out of the way of the plane like the modern fighters. This all happened in seconds and was a very big risk.
    I asked Karel if Grandpa would have survived the crash had he not taken the chance to jump. He said, "No. The plane nose-dived into the ground and he would have died on impact." Karel said the plane was going down at a rapid rate and it could have easily gone very wrong.
    For Grandpa to have walked away from this with only a bullet wound to the arm was pretty miraculous. Ground fire hit the belly of aircraft and for a plane to have been hit at the wing and a pilot to only receive a bullet wound to the arm was very fortunate. Pilots shot down were often hit from the bottom of the body fuselage and even up through their seats.
    Karel also said that Grandpa was coming back from a mission in Germany. He was shot down by American 'friendly fire' as ANY planes coming from that direction were assumed to be the enemy.
    The aircraft pieces are assumed to come from Grandpa's plane as there are no other documented crashes at that location. They were found by a gentleman who lives next to the site and passed on the Karel who framed two and passed along the rest to Mom.
    Grandpa was 26 and Mom was 4 years old on January 16, 1945.

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