A Good Day, a Not Good Day on HHI

The following was written yesterday, Saturday. We're now in a little town just outside Birmingham, AL, called Pelham. Tomorrow we'll see the m/c museum.
Love, Cheryl


Frank: The locals refer to Hilton Head Island as “HHI”. I would prefer H2I, but that’s just me.

I had a good day. Cheryl not so good.

I took Cheryl down to the beach at Coligny Plaza at about 11 AM and I then went north to RT.95 and hung a left and went down to the “Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum.” I hadn’t planned on going to that particular museum but my buddy Jeremy from England emailed and said it was well worth seeing. So I did. And he was right. I expect he was particularly interested in the Mighty Eighth as it was formed to be deployed to England during WWII and a lot of the old remnants of the air bases are still accessible, if you know where to look, which he does.

The Mighty Eighth was so large that they were launching strikes against Germany that included over 2000 aircraft on an almost daily basis. Two thousand aircraft including bombers, fighters, reconnaissance, and other planes, that’s huge!

The best part of the museum for me was an audio-visual exhibit where you were inserted into and included in a raid over Germany. The theater had nine video screens situated ahead of you, to the left and right, and up and down so you had a complete view of the bomber formation you were in. All the video footage was real from WWII updated with proper synchronized sound and lights.

The video started out with a young boy climbing on some high rocky cliffs while his mother stood below in a beautiful green field calling, “Bobby, come home!” The narration then introduces us to the grown up “Bobby” the pilot of our plane, the adventure seeker from the rocks. The video starts at pre-flight and takes you through take off, forming up in the bomber groups, flying over Germany through anti-aircraft fire with appropriate flashes of lights and booming sounds, getting attacked by German fighters, and making the bombing runs. It even included a huge rush of wind through the theater when the bomb bay doors were opened. After dropping the bombs the formation turns back toward England having successfully completed the mission. But wait! We are suddenly attacked by more fighters. They’re all around us! There’s a blinding light and suddenly all the screens are filled with roaring flames! Fade to black. And then, on the center screen is the beautiful field again and the mother calling, “Bobby, come home.”

I gotta tell you I had to “man-up” real quickly as there were tears forming in my eyes. Yeah, it was a hell of a video experience.

I picked Cheryl up at the beach about 3 PM. She didn’t have a real good day, but I will let her tell you about it later.

I took some photos but they are all way too dark to be used. Sorry.

PS: We went and saw the new movie, “The Help” last night. We had both read the book and are pleased to say the film follows it perfectly. It’s a great movie. Don’t miss it, even if you can.


Frank