By Gill Griffin, Barry Griffin
The 20-year-old Len Thorne joined the RAF in may perhaps 1940. After worrying excursions of operational accountability as a fighter pilot (including a few desperately risky low-level flying at Dunkirk) he was once published to AFDU (Air combating improvement Unit) and remained there as a try pilot for the remainder of the conflict. He flew either Allied airplane and captured enemy planes and used to be a colleague of some of the fighter 'aces'. thankfully for us, Len saved an insightful diary, which, set along his log ebook, tells the original tale of a member of the AFDU, tasked with constructing oeprational strategies and trying out captured enemy airplane. Len offers not just an perception into the superb paintings performed by means of the attempt pilots but additionally into one of the most well-known flyers of the RAF, with whom he labored, together with Wing Commander Al Deere and Spitfire Aces SL 'paddy' Finucane, Ernie Ryder, etc. Len's diary for September 21 1942 files the 1st sighting of the dreaded FW190: 'The pilot played a chain of quickly rolls... metaphorically sticking up the proverbial fingers.' In may perhaps 1943 Len will be flying an identical sort after pilot Heinz Erhardt mistakenly landed one at Marston!
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Extra resources for A Very Unusual Air War: From Dunkirk to the AFDU--The Diary and Log Book of Test Pilot Leonard Thorne, 1940-45
Example text
Those that dared to complain were murdered by the Zealots. In Masada the situation was different. The defenders of Masada consisted only of the Zealots and their families. Moreover their leader, Eleazar ben Yair, was probably a highly charismatic figure; the orders of the leaders were followed to the bitter end. THE SITES AT WAR A plan of Pompey’s siege of Jerusalem, 63 BC. 1 – first Roman camp, 2 – second Roman camp, 3 – the site where the Roman Army was let in by the supporters of Hyrcanus, 4/5 – the Roman attacks on the Temple Mount from the west and from the north.
Moreover in AD 106, he annexed the neighbouring Nabataean kingdom, creating the Provincia Arabia. The Jews would once more fight against the Romans, under the leadership of Bar Kochba from AD 132–35, in Hadrian’s reign. The latter wished to rebuild Jerusalem as a Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina, and to erect a temple dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus on the site of the Jewish Temple. After three years of a hard-fought and bloody guerrilla war, mainly in southern Judaea, the Romans crushed the revolt.
On its coins are depicted the standards of the legions III Gallica, VI Ferrata, X Fretensis and XII Fulminata. Vespasian established a colony at Caesarea Maritima, the Colonia Prima Flavia Augusta Caesarea. Later, Domitian established another Roman colony at Flavia Neapolis, modern Schechem. Flavian Judaea became a senatorial province, and was no longer an equestrian one, a move intended to prevent the abuses that brought the Jews to revolt in AD 66. Jerusalem was left in ruins, although the X Legion Fretensis remained there, encamped on the site of Herod’s Palace, protected by the three surviving towers of the citadel.