All of you who have come to the house are treated to a tour of our study. You all remember seeing a die-cast model of a British Spitfire fighter plane from World War II. One of the heroes of my life is my late Uncle Noel Ballew. He left Dallas in 1940 and went to Canada. He trained to be a fighter pilot and went by ship to England. He fought valiantly during the Battle of Britain. He later transferred to the US Army Air Corps and flew a P-47. He was shot down over France and a POW of the Germans and ,oddly, the Russians also.
At 5:55 this afternoon, Scott Pelley of CBS News did a segment honoring the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the brave American flyers who went from peace time and neutral United States to fight the Nazis. Scott pointed out that precise number of American volunteers will never be known. 9-11 of the pilots admitted to being Americans. The rest claimed that they were Canadians.
Scott pointed out that one log taken from a British base at the time had a notation about a Spitfire pilot with the nickname of "Tex." I have a funny feeling that they were talking about my dear Uncle Noel.
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