Wednesday, August 14, 1991 - North Shore News - 9 KILLER WHALE WATCHING! STUBBS ISLASD CHARTERS OFFERS THE CLTIIMATE EXPERIENCE! Are these old guys the youngsters who lived to tell the tale of Ploesti? IF SOME crystal-ball gazer had told me 48 years ago that in 1991 I would sup and tipple in Salt Lake City with the American friends of those days in Romania I would have laughed. But it has happened. The friends are fliers who had Dey cruises depart from quaint histone TELEGRAPH COVE, ‘Killer Whate Capital of Canada’ to view orcas in the wild, just 4% hour cruise from prime curing area © Dally Tours dune te: October * Spacious Coast Guard Approved to) vessels (MV LUKWA & GIKUMN 5 hour cruise with hearty homemade meal © On board hydrophones . Group andior Senior Rates * FOR RESERVATIONS IN B.C. 1-800-665-3066 duces slumber. But | didn’t really write it for you. I wrote it for me and for the friends of those days — the Huntleys, the Bob Lockys,. the Hank Lascos, the Al Mashes and all the rest whom [ hope to We've been whale watching since 1980 and have seen orcas on over 90%, of our trips! STUBBS ISLAND been shot down in the greatest low-level heavy bomber attack of the Second World War. On Aug. I, 1943, 177 Libera- tors took off from Benghazi, in Libya, for the oit installations at Ploesti, in Romania, which were only just within flying range. They went in at a couple of hundred feet, sometimes less, flying be- tween high smokestacks and bar- rage balloons and in dense smoke and flame. The Germans knew they were coming so it was a kind of air- borne Charge of the Light Brigade. Fifty-four planes were lost, each with a 10 or 11-man crew. But about 40% of Ploesti's important oil capacity was destroyed. So what's that got to do with me? Nothing, except that during my wartime Cook's Tour of Europe, a fellow foot-slogger and ! found ourselves in the same prison camp in which about 120 American survivors of the raid sere held. At first they thought we were spies. But it would be a fancy spy indeed who could put on the Not- tingham accent sported by my fellow traveller, Ted Lancaster. So what wich one thing and another we were soon accepted. And a better bunch 1 never met. About half of them are still around and they have these re- unions. Anyway, on this recent Aug. |. a couple of dozen of us chortled over the nonsense of yore and ao doubt mystified a few on- lookers. To them, we might have been relics from the War of 1812 or something. [It seemed that way to us. Could Ibe the only 24-year-old left? Could these old guys be the same dashing youngsters who had brav- ed the furnace and lived to tell the tale? I didn’t recognize some of them. ‘You can’t be YOU,’ J kept thinking. Embarrassing. For they all seemed to know ME, Americans do things in style and we were given the treatment at the Hill Air Force Base. A Brigadier General greeted us and after a memorial service during which a few eyes got wet we were given lunch and speeches in the officers’ mess. No booze, of course, as that sort of thing isn’t done in the American services. Remind me to drop President Bush a note about it. Salt Lake City was a great choice. It has to be the cleanest city in North America and the Mormon hospitality is superb. But Brigham Young's heirs don’t ex- actly encourage sin. innocents abroad, Grey Eyes and | went to a first-class restau- rant that didn’t even serve wine. She said it was good for me, which ] think is sort of silly. Doug Collins a ON THE OTHER HAND Emerging therefrom, we met a haggard-looking former pilot who said he had found a place that did serve gin but you couldn’t order a double. ! am happy to report, though, that our hospitality room in the hotel was well-organized, for which Allah and Al Mash and others be praised. Not that anyone got blotto. To a man, we were gentlemen, | would have you know. Gentlewomen, too, many wives being in attendance. Someane said, by the way, that in the officers’ compound of the jolly old Romanian prison camp they had a liquor-stil! going. If they did they didn’t let us pea- sants know about it. Forty-eight years on, | forgive them, Many wouldn't... Did I sugges: that latter-day on- lookers do not understand the wars and warriors of the brave days of old? Old buddy Russ Huntley, his wife and the Col- linses took a tour on one of those Salt Lake City horse-and-buggies. The charming girl driver was curious about us and Russ gave her bits of the story. Ploesti? Where's that? And were you prisoners of the com- munists? Oh well. Edon’t know much about the War of 1812, ¢i- ther, My apologies if this stuff in- FREE Hot Oil Treatment HELEN U.K. Vidal Sassoon trained DIANE’S HAIR DESIGN Call me & ceceive a FREE bot oil treatment 2953 Lonsdale Ave. 984-0783 (Next to Queen's Cross Pub) ADULT & ADOLESCENT ALCOHOL & DRUG COUNSELLING Brenda M. McDonall, BA, Cert. indiv. Couns. Also specializing in: ¢ Depression « Eating Disorders « Codependenc e Children of Addicted Parents » Separation an «Grief and Loss « Divorce For Appointment Call 925-9680 Member, Canadian Guidance & Counselling Association. mect again for the 50th anniver- sary. Which may be in Romania. We want to see whether the walls and ceilings of the buildings we were housed in are still stuffed full of the dirt from the tunnels we dug. Curicsity won't kill rhese cats. 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