Shropshire Star comment: Roots in the military run deep
While this week has been a time of remembrance and commemoration, this weekend will bring spectacle and entertainment in the form of the Cosford Air Show.
Tens of thousands enjoy the annual show, drinking in the ground exhibits and marvelling at the flying machines of past and present as they are put through their paces.
Almost 120 years after the advent of powered flight, air displays thrill and amaze the crowds in much the same way they did in the age of biplanes.
There is a connection with the various events we have seen to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
World leaders headed to ceremonies in Normandy, while closer to home there has been a service of commemoration at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, and various smaller local events.
Our region is geographically distant from those deadly beaches of Normandy, but that does not mean it was not in the front line. Danger was not far away as Luftwaffe bombers roamed during the Blitz, dropping bombs liberally all over the area.
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Churchill famously said, give us the tools and we will finish the job. Cosford itself provided some of those tools. Its enduring and most familiar role, past, present, and future, is training, providing the vital skills to the young men and women in uniform.
But in wartime it also assembled and flew Spitfires, as well as gliders which carried airborne troops into the heart of enemy-occupied territory. Cosford did not escape the attention of the Luftwaffe – it was bombed in 1941.
Industries across Wolverhampton and the Black Country churned out weapons of war. It was a sensible precaution to disperse production, with the upshot that unlikely locations were involved in war work. Like, for instance, Shrewsbury's Midland Red bus garage, which made Spitfire wings.
Then came the peace. Prisoners-of-war returning from overseas were processed through Cosford, which became their first stop on the way home to be reunited with their families and loved ones.
All in the past? Well, no. The Midlands can be proud of its continuing support for our armed forces, which is often unseen by the general public.
For instance, in 1982 the Queen made a private visit to COD Donnington – giving her the chance to thank the civilians and military there for all they had done to ensure victory in the Falklands campaign many thousands of miles away.
Enjoy the show at Cosford, and start out early. And reflect that, then and now, success for our armed forces begins on our doorstep.
