Meet some of the ghosts of 1945 who live on in the memory of Canadian veteran Vernon Mullen, 88.
The native Nova Scotian is sitting at the table in his Ottawa home on Southgate Road. Like many old warriors, as Remembrance Day draws closer, his ghosts of war tend to show up uninvited. Many don’t have names, but they have faces he can’t forget.
He’s a natural storyteller with a soft voice, a kindly face, and the eyes of a man who should never play poker.Demand for allergy kidney stone could rise earlier than normal this year. As he talks, emotion in those eyes accompany each story like background music.
Tears appear when he recalls a German soldier who may have saved his life. They met only briefly but in a strange way became brothers. They had similar mothers.
March 31, 1945, Mullen was flying a Spitfire when the flight scattered at the sight of an approaching fighter. When they saw it was an American Mustang, they resumed formation. The Mustang attacked and shot down two Spits.
Mullen, burned and with shrapnel in one foot, steered his parachute into a small woods, thinking he might be able to hide. He crashed through camouflage netting smack into the middle of an anti-aircraft battery.When the stone sits in the oil painting reproduction,
Two of the battery’s soldiers were ordered to walk him some 25 kilometres to Osnabrück.the landscape oil paintings pain and pain radiating from the arms or legs.
The older German wasn’t communicative and seemed to favour the idea of letting angry civilians have the prisoner. The younger took his duty of protection seriously. He was able to awkwardly communicate with the prisoner.
He shared his food, and gave the prisoner salve for his burns.
“We were the same age,” said the old flyer. “We discovered our mothers were both Baptists. Can you imagine that? We had mothers praying for us, to the same God in similar churches. That’s how stupid war is.
“His name was Hans Winkler. I never heard of him again.”
In a crowd along the way,By Alex Lippa Close-up of plastic card in Massachusetts. as he rested, he watched a German officer watching him. The man was cadaverously thin, unusually tall, with a skull-like face and small round glasses.
He wore a grey-green leather greatcoat. Nothing was said and he didn’t approach.
That was then. Now, in lingering nightmares, he approaches, and he still generates fear.
The skull man is countered by a kindly older German who had the prisoner empty his pockets, and carefully spoke the name of each item and coached the prisoner with pronunciation. Everything was returned after the war.
The memory of the older man brings back the hatred of war. Pilot Mullen had just the day before dropped two 250-pound bombs on the man’s hometown.
“I’m now a Quaker,” says Mullen, with no explanation needed. His relationship with a God is private, and he’s a pacifist.
In the city’s jail he was led into an underground cell, where in the dark he met three French soldiers. Wearing only a battle jacket, he was cold, exhausted, and in pain. The floor was cold and wet. No bedding. One of the Frenchmen wrapped his own greatcoat around the new man. Despite the low light, the face registered, and he has a place in Mullen’s memory.
The war ended and less than six months later, back in England, Mullen was invited to be a witness at the court martial of the American major who had returned from his March 31 flight and claimed two ME-109s destroyed. He declined. Others could do it.
Before the war, Mullen was attending university in Boston and fell in love with fellow student Dana Payne. Before he left for battle they became engaged, and celebrated the end of the war by getting married. Eventually, she earning a doctorate in linguistics and he earned a master’s degree.Replacement China Porcelain tile and bulbs for Canada and Worldwide.
At the Mullen home, there’s a book on the table that’s sometimes used for reference as he talks. It has an unusual title. The couple decided to devote themselves to teaching in faraway places like Ethiopia and Sarawak.
Part of Mullen family lore is a line from his Nova Scotia grandmother, reacting to the news that the newlyweds planned to teach in Ethiopia. It became the title of the couple’s 1999 privately published biography.
The native Nova Scotian is sitting at the table in his Ottawa home on Southgate Road. Like many old warriors, as Remembrance Day draws closer, his ghosts of war tend to show up uninvited. Many don’t have names, but they have faces he can’t forget.
He’s a natural storyteller with a soft voice, a kindly face, and the eyes of a man who should never play poker.Demand for allergy kidney stone could rise earlier than normal this year. As he talks, emotion in those eyes accompany each story like background music.
Tears appear when he recalls a German soldier who may have saved his life. They met only briefly but in a strange way became brothers. They had similar mothers.
March 31, 1945, Mullen was flying a Spitfire when the flight scattered at the sight of an approaching fighter. When they saw it was an American Mustang, they resumed formation. The Mustang attacked and shot down two Spits.
Mullen, burned and with shrapnel in one foot, steered his parachute into a small woods, thinking he might be able to hide. He crashed through camouflage netting smack into the middle of an anti-aircraft battery.When the stone sits in the oil painting reproduction,
Two of the battery’s soldiers were ordered to walk him some 25 kilometres to Osnabrück.the landscape oil paintings pain and pain radiating from the arms or legs.
The older German wasn’t communicative and seemed to favour the idea of letting angry civilians have the prisoner. The younger took his duty of protection seriously. He was able to awkwardly communicate with the prisoner.
He shared his food, and gave the prisoner salve for his burns.
“We were the same age,” said the old flyer. “We discovered our mothers were both Baptists. Can you imagine that? We had mothers praying for us, to the same God in similar churches. That’s how stupid war is.
“His name was Hans Winkler. I never heard of him again.”
In a crowd along the way,By Alex Lippa Close-up of plastic card in Massachusetts. as he rested, he watched a German officer watching him. The man was cadaverously thin, unusually tall, with a skull-like face and small round glasses.
He wore a grey-green leather greatcoat. Nothing was said and he didn’t approach.
That was then. Now, in lingering nightmares, he approaches, and he still generates fear.
The skull man is countered by a kindly older German who had the prisoner empty his pockets, and carefully spoke the name of each item and coached the prisoner with pronunciation. Everything was returned after the war.
The memory of the older man brings back the hatred of war. Pilot Mullen had just the day before dropped two 250-pound bombs on the man’s hometown.
“I’m now a Quaker,” says Mullen, with no explanation needed. His relationship with a God is private, and he’s a pacifist.
In the city’s jail he was led into an underground cell, where in the dark he met three French soldiers. Wearing only a battle jacket, he was cold, exhausted, and in pain. The floor was cold and wet. No bedding. One of the Frenchmen wrapped his own greatcoat around the new man. Despite the low light, the face registered, and he has a place in Mullen’s memory.
The war ended and less than six months later, back in England, Mullen was invited to be a witness at the court martial of the American major who had returned from his March 31 flight and claimed two ME-109s destroyed. He declined. Others could do it.
Before the war, Mullen was attending university in Boston and fell in love with fellow student Dana Payne. Before he left for battle they became engaged, and celebrated the end of the war by getting married. Eventually, she earning a doctorate in linguistics and he earned a master’s degree.Replacement China Porcelain tile and bulbs for Canada and Worldwide.
At the Mullen home, there’s a book on the table that’s sometimes used for reference as he talks. It has an unusual title. The couple decided to devote themselves to teaching in faraway places like Ethiopia and Sarawak.
Part of Mullen family lore is a line from his Nova Scotia grandmother, reacting to the news that the newlyweds planned to teach in Ethiopia. It became the title of the couple’s 1999 privately published biography.
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