New A Ww2 Vet Of Distinguished Service Passed On This January. His D Hateful Solar Daytime Run Was Incredible, He Started Amongst Riding Around The Minefields Together With Battlefront On This James 122Cc Lightweight, Together With Then He Was Flight A Lightweight Scouting Bird Directing Tank Together With Send Firing Coordinates
Sunday, August 7, 2022
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After excelling at schoolhouse inwards both sports too his studies, he went on to read police at Glasgow University too graduated alongside a score inwards Scottish Law too forensics medicine inwards 1939.
After joining the Territorial Army inwards 1938, Lt Col Neilson went on to move i of the outset Air Observation Post volunteers, whose project it was to accompany Spitfires too other armed forces aircraft on air-to-air missions too scout from the air for potential targets on the ground.
Lt Col Neilson played a vital purpose inwards the D-Day landings inwards 1944. He was i of the outset to brand it on the beaches too was tasked alongside finding a suitable expanse for aircraft to land.
On the eve of D-Day, regular army airplane pilot Ian Neilson, was sent on a lonely mission on a James motorbike. First though, he had to wade ashore from the landing shipping (LST) too discovery it, from whatever of 3 possible sites inwards aerial recon photos, inwards a waterproofed vehicle.
He had to ride across the battlefront too roughly minefields inwards guild to discovery a site from which he could feed target corrections dorsum to naval gunners — inwards the promise of stopping the Germans from bringing upwards reinforcements fast plenty to counter the invasion.
Indeed, his pocket-sized project force, which had arms too explosives, also equally aircraft spare parts too fuel on board the tank carrier, had to take away obstacles from the landing site in i trial it was identified.
The outset 2 examined were covered alongside crashed gliders, parachutes too dead animals. Neilson made his selection of site for the AOP at midday
The chosen i turned out to endure 3 fields of a farm at the hamlet of Plumetot, thus covered alongside obstacles such equally anti-landing poles erected yesteryear the Germans also wire fences, a concrete H2O tank too electricity pylons.
He rode dorsum to collect his working political party of 5 men too some other officer, too the waterproofed truck, total of demolitions. The landing Earth was cook afterward they blew upwards fences, electricity pylons too a concrete H2O trough. The squadron’s outset 5 Auster IV aircraft arrived the side yesteryear side twenty-four hours from the base of operations inwards England to supply additional back upwards to troops on the ground.
He flew inwards an Auster IV plane, which was a high-winged monoplane unarmed low-cal aircraft which was used for observation runs to study too guide the Allied forces most where to assail too where to avoid. Flying without parachutes to cut back weight.
Directing burn downward meant “climbing similar mad” to detect a detail shell’s flying from betwixt 500 too 1,000ft. “The fine art was to teach the aircraft pointing inwards the right administration when the vanquish came inwards to land,” Neilson recalled. “I flora myself oftentimes observing through the roof.” To the gunners’ “ready”, he would utilisation radio to give the guild to fire.
The biggest shells, from 15in naval guns, were each several feet long too weighed equally much equally a modern Smart machine — almost a ton. There was a run a jeopardy of existence hit; once, a smaller vanquish passed unopen nether Neilson’s left wing.
So effective was that shooting, from fifteen inwards naval guns, 5.5in too 4.5 inwards medium guns, too 25-pounder champaign guns, that High German infantry too Panzer reinforcements were crucially delayed – simply none of it could choose been done without Neilson’s bravery too resourcefulness inwards the invasion’s outset hours, which won him, equally an regular army aircraft pilot, the Distinguished Flying Cross.
He continued to fly, 55 sorties inwards June too July inwards these planes too thirty shoots, right upwards until the terminate of the D-Day landings. Something he said was the best feeling ever. Small note, he discovered that ship's burn downward was to a greater extent than accurate due to the method of using range headings to straight burn downward than tank's firing coordinate method of grid type coordinates.
The twenty-four hours afterward VE day, he got married to a infirmary worker, he was the CO of a War Crime’s Investigation Unit inwards Deutschland inwards 1945/46 investigated nation of war crimes at Sachsenhausen concentration military camp N of Berlin, too he formed too commanded No 666 Scottish Sqn, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, 1948-1953.
Lt Col Neilson, was a really busy human being too joined many societies relating to the armed forces, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the Boys Brigade, the Royal Yachting Association too much more. Whilst inwards Marlborough, he edited the periodical Tower too Town, wrote 2 books, an autobiography too some other most his fourth dimension at the Air Observation Post, Air OP — Action Remembered
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80017422 for an audio oral history
http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/obituaries/15070931.Lt_Col_Ian_Godfrey_Neilson/
http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/towns/marlboroughheadlines/13424547.Marlborough_war_hero_receives_France_s_highest_military_honour_at_his_bedside_in_Swindon_hospital/
http://www.marlboroughnewsonline.co.uk/news/all-the-news/3093-i-wasn-t-frightened-i-was-excited-by-it-all-reveals-marlborough-s-d-day-veteran-colonel-ian-nielson
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/lieutenant-colonel-ian-neilson-9cx2sjqzh
http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-ian-neilson-dfc-legion-d-honneur-1-4361180
http://www.theglasgowacademy.org.uk/not_the_editor/plugins/kceditor/upload/files/userfiles/All_Files/FPs/Etcetera_Archive/Etcetera_Magazine_26.pdf
https://oldthumpers.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/james-ml/
I would dear to come across this inwards a movie