Gerry Brown @compasswing

Ageing like vintage wine but still as sharp as a razor. Husband, Father, Grandfather and Great Grandfather. love all nature and life, long may it be with me. East, England Joined July 2011

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

3 days ago

@NormanBrennan Great news 👍

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Seventy-two. That is how many separate wounds John Cruickshank had in him, two of them through his lungs, while he lined up a burning flying boat for a second run at a U-boat that had just shot his aircraft to pieces. Most men have one of those wounds and they are finished. He had seventy-two and he pressed the attack. He was 24, a former bank clerk from Aberdeen, flying a Catalina flying boat out of the Shetland Islands with Coastal Command. The job was the long, freezing, mind-numbing patrol, fourteen hours over the grey Atlantic hunting the U-boats that were strangling Britain. On the 17th of July 1944, far out over empty water, they caught one on the surface, U-361, and Cruickshank took the big slow flying boat down to attack. The first run failed. The depth charges would not release. Any sane man makes a note and turns for home. Cruickshank swung the aircraft around and came back for a second pass, low and straight, and this time the submarine's gunners were waiting. Flak ripped through the Catalina. It killed the navigator, wounded half the crew, and tore into Cruickshank again and again, those seventy-two wounds, two punching into his lungs, ten into his legs. And he flew the attack home anyway. Bleeding everywhere, in agony, with the fuselage holed and on fire, he held the aircraft dead level, aimed, and released the depth charges himself. They straddled the U-boat perfectly. It broke apart and sank beneath him. Then came the part that should have killed him. He collapsed from blood loss, and the wounded co-pilot, who had never landed a Catalina, took the controls for the long flight back. Cruickshank refused the morphine that would have knocked him out, because he knew the man flying needed him. Drifting in and out, he had himself carried back up to the cockpit again and again through the night to help nurse the shot-up aircraft down, and at dawn they got it onto the water safely. He had lost so much blood the doctors said he had no business being alive. He lived. He took the Victoria Cross from the King, went quietly back to banking after the war, and rarely spoke of it. And he kept on living, and living, and living. John Cruickshank died in 2025 at the age of 105, the last man on earth wearing a Victoria Cross earned in the Second World War. Seventy-two wounds over the Atlantic, and he outlasted every other hero of that war by decades.

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

3 days ago

@VoicesofWW2 I cannot find a better example of a true hero. RIP Sir

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David Shaw @David90shaw

5 days ago

🚨 JEREMY CLARKSON BLASTS ANDY BURNHAM FOR APPOINTING ANGELA EAGLE TO RUN THE COUNTRYSIDE. Jeremy Clarkson has just hit the nail on the head regarding the absolute state of Labour's approach to British farming. Growing food in Britain is becoming financially impossible. Clarkson was forced to leave 200 acres of his own farm completely empty this year because planting wheat or barley guarantees a heavy loss! And how does Andy Burnham respond to struggling British farmers? He appoints Angela Eagle as Environment Secretary! 🤡 A career politician who has never worked on a farm and has never run a business in her entire life. As Clarkson rightly said, putting Angela Eagle in charge of the countryside is like putting Alan Carr in charge of the British Army! Our Westminster elite are actively crushing British agriculture with Net Zero red tape, insane energy bills, and family farm taxes. They would rather import cheap foreign produce than protect the hardworking British families who keep this country fed. How can a politician with zero real world farming or business experience dictate the future of our rural economy? SHARE this everywhere to stand with British farmers! 🇬🇧🔥

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

3 weeks ago

@eduardomenoni Now that is what I call Heroes

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

4 weeks ago

@ojoalcielo_ Amen

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

4 weeks ago

@FarmingUK Yes

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

4 weeks ago

@SgtMajFrenchie LOl been there with an Eagle Eyed Barrack Warden 😄

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ClarksonsFarm @ClarksonsFarm1

4 weeks ago

🙌🏼

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

4 weeks ago

@Crazymoments01 AI

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

4 weeks ago

@DogLovers03 ❤️

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

4 weeks ago

@Crazymoments01 ❤️

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

4 weeks ago

@chinnychick Totally agree with you,I am a military veteran(35 years) and it makes me sick to hear them called hero’s.

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

a month ago

@Eje_Mar_GN OMG ❤️❤️❤️

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

a month ago

@NormanBrennan If only Norman

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

a month ago

@SaveTurtleDoves @wildlifebcn @RSPBbirders Turtle Doves visiting daily now. Monday pics.

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Gerry Brown @compasswing

a month ago

@SaveTurtleDoves @wildlifebcn @Natures_Voice Sunday visit from the Turtle Dove

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Blind Veterans UK @BlindVeterans

a month ago

Leave a message of support for #blind #veterans: sbrew.link/uK1GqOZq With #ArmedForcesDay coming up on 27 June, it’s the perfect moment to show our appreciation. Let’s show them they’re never forgotten. RT to spread the word!