Eli and Sophia

Monday, December 10, 2012

More Sailing Stories

Frank Horn says:  Enjoyed that blog about sailboats -- during the summer of '43, when I was working at that factory in Attleboro, one of the guys there "drafted" me to help him sail his catboat at Cape Cod. He had a car, and was handicapped, and I was "handy", as most younger guys had already gone off to the war.
     Anyway, I liked sailing, and crewed on a "Thistle" races in Lake Washington when we were in Seattle. Later, in Sacramento, I went through several sailboats, and ended up with one that we kept for some years at a marina in Bellingham.
     The owner of the Thistle, Hans Sperber, was a former Luftwaffe fighter pilot, and was an engineer in charge of an FAA office where Dolores and I worked, at Boeing Field. As he had become a U. S. citizen, and was a veteran of WWII, he used to tease us that he should apply for veteran's benefits. Why not??
     The most competent Embassy local staff guys in both Brazil and Venezuela were German veterans from WWII.
     Hans told me that during the late phases of WWII, he would try to stay low, behind trees and hills, to avoid being noticed by anyone flying a P-51. Makes a good story, anyway.

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