From: Tony Lance
Newsgroups: swnet.sci.astro,sci.space.policy
Subject: Big Bertha Thing redoubt
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 18:28:32 +0100

Big Bertha Thing memoriam

Tony died raising his best friends family,
His wife needed two helpers, his poor heart and him.
Carer, postman, welder and domino player.
RAF aircraft fitter at Battle of Britain and El Alamain.
Outboxed a voortrecker at middleweight.
Raised trade union branch president and
National officer of voluntary .org
Taught me to keep the faith,
Mend my bicycle and trigonometry.
His story is ended, but not yet finished.

NB (2008)
'The Air Force have been magnificent all through.
We should never have got through the wadis except for their help.
They laid what Tedder calls a carpet for us; all day,
over and over again they came down to ground level ahead of us,
shooting up everything they saw resisting the advance,
and bombing all the anti-tank positions. It was magnificent,
but it was very costly to them because the Germans have plenty of
light flak.
Over and over again in the last few days
we have found crashed Hurricanes and Kittihawks in our advance,
scores of them, some with the body of the pilot still in the seat.
The Germans are resisting desperately;
if we get through to Tunis it will be because
of what these Air Force boys are doing to prepare the ground ahead of
us
and their self-sacrifice.'
Quote from fictional letter by Brigadier Carter-Hayes,
who had just died in Tunisia, about El Alamain.

From the book Pastoral by Nevil Shute
Published by Heinemann in 1944

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:11:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Planets Gather on May 5 and May 17, 2000
To: swnet.sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

Hi Marcus,