Norman D. Landing

[mikie]

5 hours ago, General Apathy said:

.

Hi AG,

 

Still aged around 16 six of us hitched up to the Twisted Wheel nightclub in Manchester to see the American soul singer Joe Tex, here’s one of his best hits, please watch to the end its fun and it’s a 60's / 70's disco classic.  ' Ain't Gonna Bump No More with no big fat woman ' 

 

When we came out the club in the early hours we slept on the benches in Piccadilly park in the Centre of Manchester we took it in turns to sleep and sit awake keeping a watch out for possible muggers, we then hitched to the Cavern club in Liverpool, and also the Sink club.  The Beatles were no longer at the Cavern and most members of the Sink club carried a rubber sink plug in their pockets as a sort of membership identity.

 

Not certain that vagrancy was considered back then, we carried some money with us   

 

 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

How music has changed since then. It used to actually be good. 

 

Ken, you could have had a career as a judge with all your experience on the bench. 

 

Mikie

 

 

[General Apathy]

18 hours ago, American Graffiti said:

Happy days! what a story, good job you didn't get done for vagrancy. Not too dissimilar to the plot for First Blood ;-) except the National guard weren't called out.

Must have been fun back in those days hitching around following bands and girls, to echo several members on this thread you have to write your memoirs Ken!

AG

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Hi AG, 

 

yes they certainly were Happy Days !!! two more additional anecdotes I can relate on the forum are these.

 

Back to the time we hitched to Margate, we were on the beach one day when for some reason I shook my left hand and the gold signet ring my parents had bought me for my sixteenth birthday flew off my finger and into the sands, I sifted through the sands for some time with my fingers but didn't recover it.  What I did do was memorise the spot triangulating with buildings above the beach.  When we re-visited Margate three years later on our  Lambretta scooters I returned to the same spot and again sifted through the sands and unbelievably recovered the ring.

 

In-between the two events of the visit to Margate hitching lifts and re-visiting on the scooters, around twenty-five scooter friends and I headed from Bromsgrove to Torquay for a scooter weekend.  I was travelling on my TV175 Lambretta with a passenger and south of Bristol near Taunton I blew a hole through the piston due to speed, the distance, and engine heat.  This happened opposite some small countryside dining restaurant, we sat watching the restaurant and planning how we were going to handle the situation and get ourselves and the scooter home.

 

I kept an eye across the road hoping for some sort of van or truck to call in at the restaurant, eventually a medium size horse box truck pulled in, I waited for them to finish eating and ran across and asked them if they would carry the scooter back in the direction they were heading.  Fortunately they were heading for Bristol, I said that that would be a great help and gave them some cash for helping us out, there was a horse already onboard in one stall, the two of us and the scooter occupied the second stall.   They kindly dropped us off at Bristol train station, I bought tickets for the two of us and another to put the scooter in the cargo carriage.  As I pushed the scooter along the platform I saw the faces of three girls in one of the windows and recognised them as three girls we had spent time with in Margate when we hitched there.  So I put the scooter in the cargo carriage and we walked back along the train and joined the three girls in their compartment until we reached Bromsgrove, once again Happy Days !!!! 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[General Apathy]

1 hour ago, American Graffiti said:

Ha! Classic video of Joe Tex, Twisted Wheel and the Cavern are of course legendary near mythical venues now. Manchester is my home town, can't say id recommend sleeping in Piccadilly Gardens now, its changed a lot!

AG

.

Hi AG,

 

Yes you're right legendary, iconic and mythical clubs, as were the Marquee in London, the Whiskey a go-go, and Troubadore in LA.  What was great about most of these clubs were the live bands and singers that preformed there. 

 

One night at a club in the UK where the BBC's Radio-1  DJ Tommy Vance was headlining, I spoke to him and said that I had with me an unheard studio cassette tape of the next forthcoming Led Zeppelin album, he said that he didn't play that ' heavy ' type music . . . . . . . .  Ironic really as within a couple of years he was billed as the BBC's heavy-rock DJ . . . . . . . . . and his entire presenting style and voice changed to suit the genre of music he now played, sadly he died in 2005.

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

  

[General Apathy]

51 minutes ago, mikie said:

How music has changed since then. It used to actually be good. 

 

Ken, you could have had a career as a judge with all your experience on the bench. 

 

Mikie

 

 

.

Hi Mikie,

 

Thankfully through the years I have listened to an eclectic array of music and bands, the one style I cannot get into is Rap . . . . . . . . . !!

 

I laughed out loud one evening watching a Jack Nicholson film ' Something's gotta give '

 

Nicholson is dating Diane Keatons daughter and Keaton is questioning what Nicholson does for a living, the daughter states that Nicholson runs one of the largest Hip-Hop studios in the US.  Keaton scoffs at the words Hip-Hop and said it's one type of music she can't stand.

 

Nicholson tries to defend the genre and states that a lot of people consider it poetry . . . . . 

 

Keaton states that she can't see that ' after all how many words can you rhyme with BITCH ' 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

[General Apathy]

.

Hi Johan,

 

an advertiser has put a few interesting new old stock Jeep parts on Milweb this week, love the original early Ford cross-over tube . . . . 

 

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Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[mikie]

13 hours ago, General Apathy said:

.

Hi Mikie,

 

Thankfully through the years I have listened to an eclectic array of music and bands, the one style I cannot get into is Rap . . . . . . . . . !

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

Rap is one of the few types I'm not fond of, despite the wife and daughter liking it. But I remember my dad chastising my older brothers for listening to the Beatles in the 1960s. So I try to be open minded about it. But usually fail. 

 

There are a couple of college radio stations I like to listen to. They play all kinds of music, jazz, blues, swing, folk, big band, Celtic and even show tunes. I was howling with laughter a couple of months ago to hear them playing Springtime for Hitler.

Can't imagine what listeners who weren't familiar with the old musical The Producers thought when they heard that.

[General Apathy]

9 hours ago, mikie said:

Rap is one of the few types I'm not fond of, despite the wife and daughter liking it. But I remember my dad chastising my older brothers for listening to the Beatles in the 1960s. So I try to be open minded about it. But usually fail. 

 

There are a couple of college radio stations I like to listen to. They play all kinds of music, jazz, blues, swing, folk, big band, Celtic and even show tunes. I was howling with laughter a couple of months ago to hear them playing Springtime for Hitler.

Can't imagine what listeners who weren't familiar with the old musical The Producers thought when they heard that.

.

Hi Mikie,

 

I love the quote used in Bob's Country Bunker seen in the Blues Brothers film ' oh yes we play both kinds of music here Country & Western '

 

' OK boys Rawhide it is '

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

[General Apathy]

.

This is rolling around on the internet appears to not be attributed to anyone . . . . other than the authors of the book "The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil Production in England During World War II" written by Guy Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward published in 1973, and tells the obscure story of the American oil men who went to England to bore wells in a top secret mission in March 1943. 

 

THE OIL PATCH WARRIORS OF WORLD WAR II 

  

Seventy-five years ago this month, a Band of Roughnecks went abroad on a top secret mission into Robin Hood's stomping grounds to punch oil wells to help fuel England's war machines. 

It's a story that should make any oilman or woman proud. 

The year was 1943 and England was mired in World War II. U-boats attacked supply vessels, choking off badly needed supplies to the island nation. But oil was the commodity they needed the most as they warred with Germany. 

A book "The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil Production in England During World War II" written by Guy Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward was published in 1973, and tells the obscure story of the American oil men who went to England to bore wells in a top secret mission in March 1943. 

England had but one oil field, in Sherwood Forest of all places. Its meagre output of 300 barrels a day was literally a drop in the bucket of their requirement of 150,000 barrels a day to fuel their war machines. 

Then a top secret plan was devised: to send some Americans and their expertise to assist in developing the field. Oklahoma based Noble Drilling Company, along with Fain-Porter signed a one year contract to drill 100 wells for England, merely for costs and expenses. 

42 drillers and roughnecks from Texas and Oklahoma, most in their teens and early twenties volunteered for the mission to go abroad. The hands embarked for England in March 1943 aboard the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Four National 50 drilling rigs were loaded onto ships but only three of them made landfall; the Nazi U-boats sank one of the rigs en route to the UK. 

They worked 12 hour tours, 7 days a week and within a year, the Americans had drilled 106 wells and England oil production shot up from 300 barrels a day to over 300,000 

The contract fulfilled, the American oil men departed England in late March 1944. But only 41 hands were on board the return voyage. Herman Douthit, a Texan derrick-hand was killed during the operation. He was laid to rest with full military honours, and remains the only civilian to be buried at The American Military Cemetery in Cambridge. 

"The Oil Patch Warrior," a seven foot bronze statue of a roughneck holding a four foot pipe wrench stands near Nottingham England to honour the American oil men's assistance and sacrifice in the war. A replica was placed in Ardmore Oklahoma in 2001 

It is by no means a stretch to state that without the American mission, we might all be speaking German today. 

Special thanks to the American Oil and Gas Historical Society. 

  

"There are no noble wars, just noble warriors!"

 

.

 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[Dogsbody]

5 hours ago, General Apathy said:

.

Hi Mikie,

 

I love the quote used in Bob's Country Bunker seen in the Blues Brothers film ' oh yes we play both kinds of music here Country & Western '

 

' OK boys Rawhide it is '

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

Ah yes, Bob's Country bunker...........but you still had to play behind chicken wire, hahaha

[General Apathy]

.

St Mere Eglise anniversary June 2021 . . . . . . . . 

 

Ste Mere Eglise decorated the town square for this years 77th anniversary of the invasion and liberation. Schoolchildren were asked to make cards to be part of the celebrations, strung between the trees in the town square, sadly the rain soaking many of them.

 

Certainly the events of WWII are still taught here in French schools, if forgotten elsewhere. 

 

 

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Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 29  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[General Apathy]

.

Hi Johan,

 

Thanks for the like on the children cards, here are some more shots from the town square showing veterans stories.

 

Funny when I was stood with a friend on Sunday taking these shots he said ' I wonder which company made these signs'. This morning I emailed all these shots out to numerous friends including a French guy with a Jeep I met at a car show three years ago, he replied with the email saying it was his company that produced the signs . . . . . . . .  Is this one of those six degrees of separation of knowing people. 

 

.

 

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.

 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 29  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[General Apathy]

.

Another three of the veterans story boards . . . . . . 

 

Seventy-seven years on and the town, the citizens and the schoolchildren retain the memory of the men that fought here. 

 

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Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 29  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[mikie]

Thank you to the people of France for remembering and keeping the memory alive. Sadly true that very little if anything is taught here about the war at all, nevertheless D-Day.

[mikie]

19 hours ago, General Apathy said:

.

This is rolling around on the internet appears to not be attributed to anyone . . . . other than the authors of the book "The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil Production in England During World War II" written by Guy Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward published in 1973, and tells the obscure story of the American oil men who went to England to bore wells in a top secret mission in March 1943. 

 

THE OIL PATCH WARRIORS OF WORLD WAR II 

  

Seventy-five years ago this month, a Band of Roughnecks went abroad on a top secret mission into Robin Hood's stomping grounds to punch oil wells to help fuel England's war machines. 

It's a story that should make any oilman or woman proud. 

The year was 1943 and England was mired in World War II. U-boats attacked supply vessels, choking off badly needed supplies to the island nation. But oil was the commodity they needed the most as they warred with Germany. 

A book "The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil Production in England During World War II" written by Guy Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward was published in 1973, and tells the obscure story of the American oil men who went to England to bore wells in a top secret mission in March 1943. 

England had but one oil field, in Sherwood Forest of all places. Its meagre output of 300 barrels a day was literally a drop in the bucket of their requirement of 150,000 barrels a day to fuel their war machines. 

Then a top secret plan was devised: to send some Americans and their expertise to assist in developing the field. Oklahoma based Noble Drilling Company, along with Fain-Porter signed a one year contract to drill 100 wells for England, merely for costs and expenses. 

42 drillers and roughnecks from Texas and Oklahoma, most in their teens and early twenties volunteered for the mission to go abroad. The hands embarked for England in March 1943 aboard the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Four National 50 drilling rigs were loaded onto ships but only three of them made landfall; the Nazi U-boats sank one of the rigs en route to the UK. 

They worked 12 hour tours, 7 days a week and within a year, the Americans had drilled 106 wells and England oil production shot up from 300 barrels a day to over 300,000 

The contract fulfilled, the American oil men departed England in late March 1944. But only 41 hands were on board the return voyage. Herman Douthit, a Texan derrick-hand was killed during the operation. He was laid to rest with full military honours, and remains the only civilian to be buried at The American Military Cemetery in Cambridge. 

"The Oil Patch Warrior," a seven foot bronze statue of a roughneck holding a four foot pipe wrench stands near Nottingham England to honour the American oil men's assistance and sacrifice in the war. A replica was placed in Ardmore Oklahoma in 2001 

It is by no means a stretch to state that without the American mission, we might all be speaking German today. 

Special thanks to the American Oil and Gas Historical Society. 

  

"There are no noble wars, just noble warriors!"

 

.

 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 27  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

I've been studying history for 50 years, and am still frequently thrilled to learn something new about the war. 

[Dogsbody]

Just to come back to music a bit. In 2019 during the 75th liberation anniversary festivities around here people and shops were encouraged to turn their windowsills and shop windows into little museums. One of the shop windows dealt with the memories of a young lady and a certain song, played by an U.S. Army brassband, she remembered the rest of her life and that reminded her of the liberation of the city of Roermond on march the first 1945. 

 

 

 

 

 

[doyler]

4 hours ago, mikie said:

Thank you to the people of France for remembering and keeping the memory alive. Sadly true that very little if anything is taught here about the war at all, nevertheless D-Day.

 

 

Yes and Thanks to Ken and all the others who post here. A daily history lesson and keeping the fires burning.

[General Apathy]

23 hours ago, mikie said:

Thank you to the people of France for remembering and keeping the memory alive. Sadly true that very little if anything is taught here about the war at all, nevertheless D-Day.

.

Hi Mikie,

 

thanks Mikie,  it's nice to let people know that the terrible events of the 1940's are remembered and commemorated here, with successive generations being taught about it.

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 30  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[General Apathy]

23 hours ago, mikie said:

I've been studying history for 50 years, and am still frequently thrilled to learn something new about the war. 

.

Hi Mikie,

 

yes it's amazing what information still keeps turning up even now 70/80 years on.  I think we all keep hearing and learning new details.  The amount of photographs that are added daily to various websites that have never been seen before.  I recall how for many years the same few wartime photos were shown in many books.

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 30  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

[General Apathy]

19 hours ago, Dogsbody said:

Just to come back to music a bit. In 2019 during the 75th liberation anniversary festivities around here people and shops were encouraged to turn their windowsills and shop windows into little museums. One of the shop windows dealt with the memories of a young lady and a certain song, played by an U.S. Army brassband, she remembered the rest of her life and that reminded her of the liberation of the city of Roermond on march the first 1945. 

 

 

 

 

 

.

Hi Rene,

 

once again you are showing another side to WWII events which are often not shown or overlooked, the campaigns in the Nederland's. 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 30  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

 

[General Apathy]

19 hours ago, doyler said:

 

 

Yes and Thanks to Ken and all the others who post here. A daily history lesson and keeping the fires burning.

.

Hi Ron,

 

many thanks, I may have started this over ten years ago but it's the many other contributors ( inc yourself ) that have kept it live and interesting,

and at times adding fun comments. 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 30  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

 

 

 

 

[General Apathy]

.

US aircraft and aircrew recovery this week in the UK . . . . . . . . 

 

This week in the UK there is an American group that recover the remains of lost American servicemen. They are digging a field looking for the remains of a crashed B-24 and three crewmen that went down with the aircraft returning from a mission over France. The article regarding this is reported in the Daily-Mail a UK national newspaper . . . . . . 

 

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.

 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 30  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

[BEAST]

Happy Fathers Day to me! So my daughters gave me a pack of snacks from foreign countries (primarily Eastern European) but they also included a few packs of Dutch licorice!

[BEAST]

2 hours ago, General Apathy said:

.

US aircraft and aircrew recovery this week in the UK . . . . . . . . 

 

This week in the UK there is an American group that recover the remains of lost American servicemen. They are digging a field looking for the remains of a crashed B-24 and three crewmen that went down with the aircraft returning from a mission over France. The article regarding this is reported in the Daily-Mail a UK national newspaper . . . . . . 

 

.

 

.

 

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, June 30  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

Ken, Thanks for posting this.  Did they mention which group is conducting the search?

[General Apathy]

13 hours ago, BEAST said:

Ken, Thanks for posting this.  Did they mention which group is conducting the search?

.

Hi Erick,

 

Thanks for asking, I think the crash happened around 22nd June 1944, it's a group called American Veterans Archaeological Recovery (AVAR), sorry that all the detail I have for them.

 

Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, July 01  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.

[General Apathy]

' They don't make them like this anymore '

 

This is the obituary of the wartime friend of my girlfriend Jane's father. He was involved in the audacious 1942 commando raid on the dry docks at St. Nazaire France to prevent any use by German battleships. He was imprisoned in Colditz by the Germans after various escape attempts. 

 

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Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, July 01  2021.

 

" Life's too short for reproductions "

 

"  Life is like a tank of gas, the closer you get to a quarter tank, the faster it goes "

 

.