(Rocket contributed this color version of a squadron patch from 1944. He said his Uncle’s unit had it manufactured prior to their deployment to the ETO. That was the color version of an old war, otherwise only visible in Black and White.)

Sorry. We are going to veer off the usual litany of current crises we could talk about this morning. There are plenty, as you know. Every generation has them, and they are worth considering as we deal with ours. But the group at the Fire Ring at Refuge Farm was a bit lethargic, male and female alike, for the usual post-Saturday night reasons. But the distillery is closed by law on Sundays, and despite the brilliant blue of clear heavens and the piercing bright light of our happy sun, things started a little slowly near the diminishing shadow of the barn’s Loading Dock.

Loma was the first to complain about his particular version of morning dystopia. Apparently his tablet device would not download the attachment that comes with this otherwise insignificant daily notification. DeMille put his coffee down and stubbed out his third morning Marlboro.

“Why don’t you unfold the worn imitation leatherette cover across your lap instead of backward across the antenna? You might get better reception.”

Loma scowled and complied, which is the best practice when receiving direction from nuclear qualified officers. The rest of the circle paused, waiting to see if there would be cessation in complaint. We were gratified the skies were clear and other obstructions to the low-earth orbit satellites did not interfere. Loma gave a small groan of satisfaction as the document loaded, and then an exclamation of joy. “It is in color! I thought that war was in black and white!”

It was a remarkable enough development that passing the tablet round the circle, flipping from image to image, took a little while. Splash got up and lumbered over to his ragged sea bag propped by the fence. He dug a bit and pulled out a square black frame with an old image in it. “This is how they saw their color world back then. My Dad did in in pen-and-ink, the best he could use to produce a life-like image.”

(The caption to this black-and-white image reads “Buzzin’ Betsy’s Old Man. It is dated from a period of conflict some 80 years ago).

DeMille peered closely at the image. “That is a nice screen capture of an era long ago. That is the way we remember the past.” He handed the framed picture back to Splash with care.

Loma laughed and handed his tablet over to him. “This is how they actually looked, or as close as we can get with the new technology.” DeMille held the framed picture and looked at the image of a bomber crew from the “Mighty Eighth:”

“Wow. It looks like those guys are actually alive.”

There was some nodding around the circle that suggested we were alive, too. Or at least dealing with it’s similarity. Melissa laughed. “You should see the picture of the Russian Lady pilots. The two in the picture had completed more than 1,600 night missions. Night combat missions. And they are decent looking ladies with appropriately colored medals for courage under fire.”

Splash smiled, and made an appropriate sweeping gesture. “But I can assure you,” he said, “those night missions were flown in black and white. They had to wait until after dawn for the color ones.” There was general agreement on that, but the consensus view around the circle was that we were going to do this brilliant day in full color to honor their memory.

Splash as usual had the last laugh. “And ours,” he said.

Copyright, less image attachment, 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

WWII photos…autifully.pdf
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