Grandpa
\nby cricketjeff on July 2, 2008.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved<\/p>\n
He flew above a ship beneath a kite
\nAt Mons he spotted guns from a balloon
\nHe saw the Somme from high above the fight
\nWhen just a child he’d dreamt about the moon<\/p>\n
Before the world was shrunk to modern size
\nHe flew between two wings of wood and wire
\nAn airscrew to attach him to the skies
\nA love of danger served to drive him higher<\/p>\n
The Second War with submarines to chase
\nAnd then he showed “Short Hoppers” the Azores
\nHe always knew the enemy to face
\nBill Wilmshurst flew throughout the two World Wars<\/p>\n
He must have had a history to tell
\nBut Grandpa died before I knew him well<\/p>\n
Author notes
\n“Short Hoppers” Were American delivery pilots who flew bombers and flying boats
\nacross the various shortest hops to get to Britain during the Second World War.
\nW\/Cdr F W Wilmshurst was my Mother’s father who joined the Royal Navy as a
\n“boy” to learn to fly. He was seconded to the BEF in 1914 and earned his Mons
\nStar at the First British action in 1914 and was still in action on VE day in
\n1945 by which time he was in charge of signals on the Azores.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grandpa by cricketjeff on July 2, 2008.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved He flew above a ship beneath a kite At Mons he spotted guns from a balloon He saw the Somme from high above the fight When just a child he’d dreamt about the moon Before the world was shrunk to modern size […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2941","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8567,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2941\/revisions\/8567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}