We were originally of Scottish Blood

My life in Pictures

Last Update 24 November 2009

The best of Newtownards
World War 2
Many brave men went off to fight and many never returned.

Yet again I hope that this section of the site will do a little justice to the sacrifices given by these brave people...

Albert Charles Tyler.  My Uncle and a true hero who lost his life fighting alongside Monty and the 8th. Army at El Alamain.. Although originally from Plymouth in England he was still married to N.Ireland. R.I.P.

Blair "Paddy" Mayne

one the most decorated soldiers of WW2. There are others who can tell you much more than i can, check out Stewarts Page  HERE

Hamilton "Hammy" Cowan

A Sgt. Airgunner with 625 Squadron RAF and had the pleasure of being involved in raids on Berlin, Cologne and Leipzig among other of the Lancasters crew.. 
Click on image to visit a dedication page.

Robert Alexander "Timber" Woods

No. 2721238 C.Company Irish Guards left Newtownards in 1936 and gave his life so that we could enjoy the freedom we now have. R.I.P.

5th. AA battery during WW2


5th. AA Battery at a reunion in the 1960s


You needed this to be able to buy clothes.

Some Stats.

Current estimates of loss of life (Allied) from WW2

The highest percentage by population lost were (descending) Poland, followed by The Soviet Union, Greece, Singapore, Yugoslavia, Phillipines, Hungary, French Indochina, Dutch East Indies, Netherlands, Malaya, Czechslovakia, China, Burma, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Luxembourg, India, Ethiopia, Australia, Malta, Canada, Bulgaria, Norway, United States, etc.

 

Allied Air Aces of WW2 came from many corners of the globe and there were many unusual stories to tell, here are some,. 

The Polish Air Force's Contribution
In July 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to invade Britain. As a prelude to the cross-Channel invasion, the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe) was to overpower Britain's air defenses. In the ensuing Air War between the German and Allied Air Forces, which lasted through the end of October 1940 and resulted in the defeat of the Luftwaffe, 1 in 8 of allied pilots was Polish, and the highest scoring squadron within the whole of Allied air forces was the Polish Air Force 303 (Kosciuszko) Squadron which accounted for 125 enemy planes. The highest scoring allied fighter pilot was also a member of that squadron. All told, the Polish pilots were responsible for 201 of the Luftwaffe's 1100 planes lost. It is said that the Battle of Britain was won by a narrow margin, and the contribution of the already combat experienced Polish pilots was decisive.

Amid horrendous losses, a few talented individuals rose to prominence. Most famous was Aleksandr I. Pokryshkin, who was flying the mediocre Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 when he downed an Me-109E of JG.77 near Jassy on June 23, 1941. Surviving the war with 59 victories -- 48 of which were scored flying a Lend-Lease Bell P-39 Airacobra -- Pokryshkin won the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union three times, as well as the American Distinguished Flying Cross.

Another special case from the war's early days was Aleksei P.P. Marasyev, who downed his seventh victim, a Junkers Ju-52, in April 1942, before being shot down by a flight of 10 Me-109s. Marasyev emerged from the wreckage of his Yakovlev Yak-1 with both legs crushed, and over the next 19 days he crawled back to Russian lines. By the time he was found by partisans and evacuated, gangrene had set in and both legs had to be amputated. With a determination worthy of Douglas Bader, however, Marasyev mastered both artificial legs and aircraft. Flying Lavochkin La-5s, he achieved a final score of 19.

A relative latecomer was Ivan N. Kozhedub, whose flying skill made him so valuable as an instructor that he was not able to wangle a combat assignment until June 1943. Once he did, however, he became the leading exponent of the Lavochkin LaG-5, La-5FN and La-7 fighters and the leading Allied ace of World War II -- his 62 victories included a Messerschmitt Me-262A downed on February 18, 1945. Kozhedub was also the only Soviet fighter pilot other than Pokryshkin to earn three Gold Stars.

Like the RAF, the V-VS formed foreign units, including regiments of Czechoslovakian, Polish and French airmen. The famed Normandie-Niemen Regiment produced the leading French ace of World War II, Marcel Albert, with 23 victories. Another of the unit's members, Roger Sauvage, a Parisian whose mother came from Martinique, added 14 victories to the two he had scored in 1940, to become the war's only black ace.

Unique to the V-VS was the formation of three all-female regiments, of which one, the 586th, was a fighter outfit. None of the 586th Fighter Regiment scored more than four victories, but two women serving in male units did -- Lidya Litvak with 12 and Ekaterina Budanova with 11. Both, however, were killed in action.

Like the Soviets, the Chinese fought a desperate but costly air war against the better equipped and trained Japanese. Among those gifted Chinese fighter pilots who rose to prominence, Liu Chi-sun flew the Curtiss Hawk III, the Polikarpov I-152 and I-16 to account for a total of 11 1/3 Japanese aircraft between August 1937 and May 1941. The most successful Chinese fighter pilot after 1941 was Wang Kwang-fu, who scored 6 1/2 victories flying Curtiss P-40s -- including 3 1/2 on October 27, 1944 -- and two more in a North American P-51 Mustang.

Americans were involved in the air war long before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The first to become an ace, William R. Dunn, got his fifth victory on August 27, 1941, flying in No. 71 Squadron, one of three "Eagle Squadrons" in the RAF made up of American volunteers. During the Pearl Harbour raid, 2nd Lt. George S. Welch managed to take off from Wheeler Field in a Curtiss P-40B and in the course of two sorties was credited with downing four Japanese aircraft. Later flying Lockheed P-38s over New Guinea, he eventually brought his total up to 16.

More on the above can be found here http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/aces/aces_intro.htm

As a footnot; Brendan Finucane from Ireland shot down 32 Axis aircraft... not bad for a volunteer pilot...  find out more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Finucane