My Uncle Norman...

[Rubber Bullets]

My uncle Norman died just over 61 years ago. Now, apparently, they have found his body.

My father, Norman's brother, was the youngest of 9 children, and was just too young to see active service in WWII. His older brothers were not so lucky and Norman enrolled in the RAF. After training he ended up in Bomber Command as a sergeant navigating Halifax bombers, each with a crew of 7. One night in March 1944 he took off on his last mission, a raid over Berlin. Until last year nothing more was know, he was officially 'missing in action'.

For years after his mother, and hi sisters clung to the belief that he may have been captured, maybe amnesiac, and would someday return. Perhaps they went to their graves wanting to still believe it. Sadly now, at almost 80 my father is the last one left, and the only sibling to know the true story.

Norman was shot down over what was to become East Berlin. Although the Berlin wall wasn't built until 1961 it was extremely difficult to search adequately and tens of thousands of servicemen's remains still lie unfound.

The fall of the wall did however open up opportunities, and although not by design but coincidence, the remains of the Halifax were found in 2004. It took a while to find and identify all teh crew, apparently at least 2 had got out of the stricken plane, but still didn't survive the crash. When they were sure the RAF, who has a section devoted to this sort of thing, got intouch with my dad.

The RAF has decided to have a full honours military funral in Berlin this September, and are paying to fly my parents out there for it. The same goes for all the other families where they could be traced. My father would have prefered not to have so much fuss made, but other families it seems are revelling a bit. One family member asked if the press would be there to take pictures as she arrived in Berlin .

All the family have left of Norman is a couple of photos, Avery blurry one of him with soem other aircrew and this one, taken when he was in training and is about 7" x 4" complete with frame:

Dad knows that I play around with PS a bit and asked if I could do anything with it. I have never really attempted this sort of thing before, but I had a go and this is the result:

It is my dad's birthday soon and I intend to get this printed a bit bigger than the original, the quality should allow a 10" print at least, and get it nicely framed.

I guess I have spent a few hours on this, with lots of trial and error, and it always causes a sense of meancholy. One last slightly bizarre twist is that this photo was taken whilst he was training, and as you may be able to pick out this was in Paignton, Devon. This is where I now live and have been working on the picture.

I hope that it is OK to post this here, I'm not entirely sure why I felt the need to share this all with you, except to show off a bit of PS work that I am pretty pleased with. I am happy though that Norman's story is told to a few people more than would otherwise know it, I am strangely proud of him even though I never knew him.

One of the very few mentions of the whole thing to be found in the web is here

RB

 

[KevinUK]

Wow nice PS job. :worthy:
Next task: colour.

 

[Tom]

You should be proud of your uncle mate, he died helping destroy true evil.

Nice job of the photo, but I think you've removed a little too much detail and flattened the image especially on the highlights and backdrop. I also think you should increase the contrast, as the original photograph has faded with time.

 

[Turamber]

Thank you for sharing, like Tom said you can be very proud of your uncle. I am visiting Holland next year to see where my grandfather served during Operation Market Garden. Its good to recognise what these people did for us and the sacrifices they made.

 

[throdgrain]

My grandad was badly wounded at Tobruk, and was hospitalized by the Germans, then eventually sent home to England , where he spent the rest of the war as an MP, reaching France at D-Day +3.
I am enormously proud of him, just as Im sure you are of your uncle. Nice picture mate

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks for the comments guys.

hehe not sure about colour Kevin, though I have thought in the past about colourising a b/w shot.

Tom, As far as I can tell the backdrop was probably plain. It is very difficult to tell through all the grime. I certainly have lost detail in a couple of places, the collar for instance has been a nightmare, but I have done what I could.

Actually both images are more contrasty than the original scan. I'm not sure how far I want to go with that though. I don't want to create something that looks like it was shot yesterday. I want to keep the period feel that it has, just clean it up. That is why I also kept the frame as it is.

RB

 

[Trem]

A great story about a great man...well not great story but you know what I mean.

I hope you sort it RB and pray Summo reads this, he aer the PS nerdz0r.

 

[TdC]

well done RB.


btw, you may consider emailing Sar off these forums. Like Summo he excels at photoshop.

 

[Jupitus]

Well, a /salute is in order, I feel, and well done RB for following up on his memory. I am sure your Dad will be delighted with your thoughtful efforts. It is also nice to see the RAF 'making right' in the sense of ensuring those who have been found get a proper send off.

 

[PLightstar]

Respect due....

(bows in respect)

 

[Sar]

That's actually a very good job.

I would've

1. Painted in a bit of texture around his lower right cheek, just below his mouth before his chin.

2. Painted in a small thin line to distinguish his cap band from the background

3. Removed the crack in the top left.

4. Moved his lower lip to the left a bit, and made it look more natural. Then redefined the shadow to give his lip a better look in the new position.

5. Painted in some white below his right eye to make it look more even.

Overall though it's a very nicely done piece of work.

I think your dad will be made up.

I did a similar job with a picture of my maternal grandmother, after she died, for my mum, and she was very happy indeed.

Here's mine with some quick applications of the above changes:

 

[Deebs]

Respect deserved and giveth

:worthy:

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I am quite touched to have got this kind response from so many of you. So many people died at that time that it is often easy to lose sight of how it must have been.

Thank you all.

Sar, thanks for the ideas. They will be easier (I hope) on the full image, which is 4200x2600 px! I am in 2 minds about the crack top right, again I left it so as not to try to make the picture something it wasn't; if that makes sense. I want to retain the feel of a very old photo, but improve the clarity. I'll probably change my mind before I print it

RB

 

[Maljonic]

That's absolutely bloody amazing, what he did for his country and finding the plane after all that time; I think you should leave the crack in the photo for the reasons you already said.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Now before anyone jumps on the OMG DISPRESPECT bandwagon, i would like to point out my Grandfather was a Spitfire pilot, Polish as is my whole family on that side, fled joined RAF etc etc

Yes it's wonderful the body was found and the Story can finnaly be given an ending. Respect etc

However all this german bashing? "Destroying pure evil" WHAT THE FUCK.

Bombing dresden? Yeah all those evil civvies, children etc

Yes, i know it was war and all the rest of it. But lads this over romanticised view of good vs Evil makes me really fear for the future.
Both sides were as fucked up as each other, it was select small groups that we hear about (SS, Concentration camps etc).

To be quite honest if he was German and had told the story from that point of view i doubt ANY of you would have said the stuff you have said. A dead man is a dead man. Regardless what flag is on his shoulder when he "Bravely gives his life"

Nice photoshop job by the way.

 

[Sissyfoo]

I think that it is fair to say that fighting the idealogy of nazism is a fight against evil but I don't think it is fair to say they were both as bad as each other though. The allies weren't a bunch of goody-two-shoes (we can't forget ol' Stalin who, some estimate, notched up a death toll of 20,000,000 during his regime) but I think that what the germans and their other european allies (Yugoslavs and some others I can't remember) did to their victims is sickening beyond belief.

 

[throdgrain]

Quite right.
DMW in irritating deliberatley argumentative post shocka :/

 

[Turamber]

The Nazis were evil, pure and simple. Unfortunately the German people chose that party to lead them, into rearmament and then into war. Before we go all PC here - just who invaded who? I rest my case.

Terrible things happen in wartime, the bombing of Dresden is not something to be proud of. My grandfather told me how he saw British tanks swerve into columns of German prisoners and run them down. No one was ever brought up on charges and events like them were brushed under the carpet. He also described in great detail and pain, over 40 years after the event, of the scenes at the concentration camps the Allied forces liberated.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

So Hitler gaining power with the slimest of majorities means nothing?

Everyone in Britain is behind the Iraq war as we voted Blair in?

Throdgrain in head up arse, can't deal with differing opinions shocker!!

Stalin killed far more then the Axis every did. But sssh as he helped us "liberate" Germany.

We invaded iraq? that make us Nazis? Who invaded who !11oneone!!1

A whole people should not be tarred because of a minority. All you skin head racist, violent football hooligans. Your english see?
And no i'm not arguing for or aginst anything, as quite frankly there is no argument. I am simply putting a realistic and fair slant on all this German bashing bullshit.

Oh and fighting an ideology with weapons?
Fight fire with fire? two wrongs make a right? (Add any other cliches you wish)

Great, lets use that to solve all our problems!

 

[Dommers]

Respect given to RB and hes amazing restoration of that photo. But also well said DMW

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Respect given to RB and hes amazing restoration of that photo. But also well said DMW

What's this? Someone with a clue?

Someone who doesn't hop bandwagons or cry when someone points out there racist slant on everything?

Hooray, i can now emmigrate knowing someone has a clue.

 

[Turamber]

This thread is about a families memory of somebody who gave his life for his country. If you don't like it then post your fucking imbecilic politically correct bullshit somewhere else and leave this thread alone you retard.

 

[throdgrain]

This thread is about a families memory of somebody who gave his life for his country. If you don't like it then post your fucking imbecilic politically correct bullshit somewhere else and leave this thread alone you retard.

Sorry, but spot on .

 

[Sissyfoo]

Well...how would you have solved the problems in nazi germany? Ask the psycopathically deranged despot in charge to sit down, have a cup of tea and leave the jews and the rest of europe alone?

Yea, because that would work.

I was always against the war in Iraq and, in general, I am a total pacifist. In the case of world war 2 though, I say "right fucking on!" or "fucking right on" or "on right fucking!"...maybe not the last one actually.

The fact that he got into power by the slimmest majority means nothing. The fact that he was hell bent on taking over europe (and probably the world) and the fact that he would have attempted to have killed or imprisoned/enslaved every jew/dissident/homosexual/gypsy/non-ayran/handicapped person in the ENTIRE WORLD means EVERYTHING. WW2, whatever you may think, was the right thing to do. 55,000,000 died but we wouldn't even be discussing this if we rolled over on our backs and let Hitler win. How many people would have died then? I wouldn't even be alive ffs.

Anyway, Turamber is right, this isn't the place for this debate.

 

[nath]

This isn't, and well done RB on the photo, and much respect to anyone who fought in that horrible war.

Much though I think DMW is a total and utter cockend, I have to partially agree here - I didn't like the way it was put. I think the majority of allies fighting in WW2 were not fighting pure evil, they were fighting the poor buggers who had been conscripted to fight for a few twisted fucks. However, I don't think Tom meant that the average German was evil.

Sissy, DMW wasn't saying that we shouldn't have gone to war, he was complaining about the villification of your average German soldier, making things black and white, which is never a good thing to do.

Anyway - no, perhaps this isn't the place to discuss this but I think RB knows that everyone respects his uncle and impressed with what he's doing, so there's no need to be so uppety.

 

[Deebs]

Keep this thread ON TOPIC.

Flames about WWI and WWII belong here:

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?t=66533

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Well jesus, turn my back for a day and look what happens.

Frankly I am not going to join this argument. I posted this story on the internet, in this forum, knowing what the consequences may be (though this is not quite what I expected). Some of the posts here have pleased me, some disappointed me, and some have done both. Nothing has offended me, I knew the risks, and on balance I am glad I did it.

RB

 

[Tom]

Ignore the tards RB, your uncle is somebody to look up to (imagine his last moments, what it might have been like for him), he was doing something extremely valuable and you're helping keep his memory alive with the photoshoppery.

Top job lad.