Watching for Mail

WATCHING FOR MAIL

Barry Needham has been  impatiently checking his mail each day since recently returning from Normandy. He will be looking to receive a small parcel containing  pieces  from the past.  While  in Normandy, attending the 60^th Anniversary of D-Day, Barry contacted a group of French hobbyists who make it their business to track down  the remains of crashed aircraft, both Allied and German, in the Falaise area of Normandy. They  find the  sites using official records and  from personal sightings at the time of the crash. In the case of a fatality, a small plaque is mounted with the details , pilot’s name, rank and unit. After, they often contact surviving relatives, many of whom come to visit the memorial.

Norbert Hereau is the  one who found the remains of Barry’s spitfire where it crashed after he baled out on July 7^th, 1944 .  Since his wife died a few years ago, Hereau’s home has become a veritable cluttered museum  with  literally thousands of aircraft related artifacts, including two aircraft engines dug up and carefully preserved under cover in his back yard. Hereau has been involved in this work since he was 14 years old when he was an active member of the French resistance. He also found time to become Mayor of Argentan, population 18,000.

Positive identification that it is Barry’s aircraft was made  when Norbert’s numbered  piece matched the number in Barry’s lo