Friday, May 8, 2015

VE Day Flyover the Mall in DC

My colleague at work told me about it yesterday. There was to be a big flyover the Mall today to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day with many vintage aircraft from WWII. So I checked out the flight path and convinced my husband it worth be worth walking over to see the skies above from a great vantage point. I'm really sorry we didn't walk down to the WWII memorial because the crowds were there, but all along Independence Avenue and on every rooftop there were bystanders waiting for the action. We decided to stop and sit on a bench under the shade in Bartholdi Park. At the appointed time, they started showing up in groups of 1 to 6 or more. Unfortunately, the path was much more to the south than we and the crowd thought. So people moved over to get better views of the airplanes heading east and then veering south to head on to Virginia. We started walking back home and realized the best view for us would have been right on our patio looking straight up. One can only imagine what went on in the minds of those who actually flew those aircraft in the forties. My dad was on a destroyer escort during WWII and he never really talked about it, but he kept some great scrapbooks with very telling photos. Being in the engine room on a ship in the middle of a battle could not have been pleasant to say the least. And so it was, seventy years later, a lot of folks paid respects to what went on then. These are the times I really like living in DC. 











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