So I was leaving Souda Bay in Crete today.....

[Brad]

[richkolasa]

Would someone PLEASE get an A-7 flying on the airshow circuit!!! LEGACY FLIGHT! Corsair, Corsair II, Super Hornet (well there's nothing else for them to fly with!).

Rich

[n5151ts]

Would someone PLEASE get an A-7 flying on the airshow circuit!!! LEGACY FLIGHT! Corsair, Corsair II, Super Hornet (well there's nothing else for them to fly with!).

Rich

even if you put lipstick on it...

[gregv]

Sweet!

I saw those a few weeks back on the way into the airport through the cab window, but was on the wrong side of the plane on take-off to see them on take-off. Thanks for satiating my curiousity!

greg v.

[ww2John]

The top two pictures are??
thanks.
John,
the jet a/c ID-Challenged

[Ztex]

Would someone PLEASE get an A-7 flying on the airshow circuit!!! LEGACY FLIGHT! Corsair, Corsair II, Super Hornet (well there's nothing else for them to fly with!).

Rich

There is a fellow in Texas that needs some extra cubic dollars and it will happen....I hope...

[Mike Bates]

The top two pictures are??
thanks.
John,
the jet a/c ID-Challenged

T-33's

Mike

[JDK]

Ah, Souda Bay. I thought we were going to get some real history.

Crete was of course the graveyard of the Axis airborne forces. The Battle of Crete isn't as well known as it should be.

All from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete

The Battle of Crete was unprecedented in three respects: it was the first-ever mainly airborne invasion; it was the first time the Allies made significant use of intelligence from the deciphered German Enigma code; and it was the first time invading German troops encountered mass resistance from a civilian population. In light of the heavy casualties suffered by the parachutists, Adolf Hitler forbade further large scale airborne operations. However, the Allies were impressed by the potential of paratroopers, and started to build their own airborne divisions.

In one recorded case, an elderly Cretan clubbed a parachutist to death with his walking stick before the German could disentangle himself from his parachute lines.

the Māori in turn made their own fighting retreat of twenty-four miles, losing only two killed and eight wounded, all of whom they were able to carry to safety.

During the evacuation Admiral Cunningham was determined that the "Navy must not let the Army down". When Army officers expressed concerns that he would lose too many ships, Cunningham said that "It takes three years to build a ship, it takes three centuries to build a tradition."

[Stoney]

They were not there when I was there in 1960

[muddyboots]

That is one of my favorite WWII shots! All those chutes hanging under that JU 52 doing a long slow dive into the dirt with that huge smoke trail is just so emplematic to me what being airborn is all about!