Dark Helmet

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For two years, the BBC's Emma Jane Kirby has been studied, such as the story of Sgt Paul Meyer , a homesick American, a car mechanic, stole a plane from a U.S. Air Force base in England in 1969, to fly home to his wife in Virginia. The story in resonance with the Dutch readers of Theo Van Eijck, who says that he has also stolen a plane while serving in the armed forces. But he has survived to tell the story.

Theo Van Eijck's little house in Somerset is A Treasure trove of curiosities. Toy witches to swing on a tiny broomstick from the ceiling of his living room, A Family of ceramic cats-peers down quizzically at the higher shelves and a pair of skull sitting, grinning, on the sideboard.

But The Most intriguing elements are spread out, Van Eijck ' s coffee Table - Dutch newspaper clippings from 1964, with a show-stopping headlines reporting on the antics of the young Sailor , still a Grumman Tracker prop aircraft from its military base in Malta and flew to Benghazi, Libya.

"It's me!", Van Eijck laughs, now the white hair at the age of 76. "That's me right there in the photo and I was just 21!"

His wife gives me a Cup of coffee and shakes his head in mock despair, as he translated the stories for me.

"Arrogant Little Man !" She jokes, waving her finger at him. "Good Job I didn't know you back then. "

at the time, Theo Van Eijck just a young man who dreamed of flying was. In fact, he fantasies about flying since he was seven years-old had. He was not, he admits, The Greatest student in The World , and he feared that he the qualities needed would never to join the Air Force as a pilot. But then he heard about a scheme in the Dutch Navy, and was a young man entering the service as an apprentice electrician, and if he could well, apply internally for Navy pilot training. At the age of only 19 and full of optimism, Van Eijck does not hesitate. He signed immediately for eight years.

He retrieves a black-and-white photo of himself in The Cockpit of a small aircraft from the coffee Table and hands it to me. Under a dark and heavy helmet, I see a young face grinned in utter joy, to stop impatient to pose and like to Take Off .

"Oh, it started well," he agreed, when I say how delighted he sees in the old prints. "I was chosen for The Pilot project, and I loved it. "

stamped, But in the spring of 1964, with about 40 hours of flight time, pride in his logbook, the exhilarated young Van Eijck went to a party in his barracks in Holland and was pretty drunk. His come was a commanding officer in The Party , and rather the worse for wear. He beat Van Eijck, that you should speak openly about the quality of The Pilot training (which was conducted jointly by the Belgian Air Force and the Dutch Navy) and Van Eijck invited, to be honest. It's an off-the-record discussion, he assured him.

And so, perhaps naive, 21-year-old Van Eijck language open. He had to be trained on a real aircraft, he insisted, a Grumman Tracker submarine destroyer, which is provided on a Navy aircraft carrier, not the twin-engine training aircraft, the Belgians were, to teach them. The planes were they were taught (Theo grins self-consciously, as he remembers The Words he used), "quite frankly, crap".

Find out moreUp held to this point, Van Eijck, and a perfect flight record, but the very next day after The Party he had marked his report card with an orange warning sign, that meant he was in imminent danger, as a failure. Angry about the injustice, he wrote a little cocky about the slowness of the training on the classroom blackboard, while waiting for the teacher to arrive. Move, she saw him locked up in his barracks for a weekend, but to see a bar Locker, he was managed to use it, slide the bolt on his cell door, and escaped. When his absence was discovered, he was immediately kicked out of The Pilot scheme.

Van Eijck has been promoted to appeal against the decision of superiors, admired his cutting. But the officers accidentally gave him to fill out the wrong forms. When he finally got a response, three months later, he was told that he had not followed correct procedure, and it was now Too Late to take further action. He was no longer to train as a pilot and must serve his remaining Six Years in the Navy as an electrician.

"I come from a Big Family ," says Van Eijck, who is Number Nine in a series of 12 brothers and sisters. "And in The Family , we know that right is right and wrong was wrong. And that was wrong. It was just not fair. "

Depressed and desperate, with his dreams of flying, now shaken, Van Eijck pleaded for the dismissal from the Navy, but his application was repeatedly rejected. So he began to draw, to find a way to extract himself from The Force , once and for all.

"I said, absolutely no one," he smiles coyly. "If I had told someone it would not have worked. "

Theo van Eijck decided his ticket to freedom was to steal a plane. He found a manual for a Grumman Tracker aircraft and hid them in his locker. While his friends went out for a drink or went to bed, Van Eijck secretly studied. He became friends with the qualified pilots and talked with them about instruments, flight, engine start-ups, on take-offs.

The Grumman Tracker "did Little, you know, why I was interested!" he sniggers. "But from Holland, the route was difficult - I didn't want to end up in the GDR, with all the political difficulties. And Then One Day they asked for volunteers to go on a two-month exercise in Malta with The British Navy. And I thought, from Malta, I could fly anywhere!"

In Malta, Van Eijck hung around the airfield of the aviation mechanics, chat to work you observe. In the early morning and evening hours, he continued to study his now zerlesene Tracker manual. On The Last weekend before he fly due to, home to, he politely attended the farewell ceremony on The Base , but to remain while his fellow soldiers succumbed to The Temptations of the free-flowing alcohol, the young Van Eijck, carefully sober.

"And this is where my story Sgt Paul Meyer 's fits," he says. "Because I got up early the next morning and I borrowed a bike and biked to The Runway . Sgt Meyer said The Guard , his name was captain Epstein. I told The Guard I was called, Jansen - this is like Smith in Dutch - so that he had no idea who I was and he helped me open The Doors to the hangar!"

Van Eijck had planned his theft, meticulously, as he says, lock up the security guard, the gun and the bike and remove The Microphones from the phone in his office, in order to ensure that, if he was, droned on much too quickly, The Guard would fight to back-up.

Van Eijck blue eyes sparkle as he remembers the excitement of tomorrow.

"So, I started the engine, switched on the radio and the control tower began to ask who I was, what I was doing. I gave no answer. I rolled, And Then ..."

He rubs his hands theatrically and shows me his open palms like a magician delighted in the implementation of an elaborate disappearing trick.

"And Then .... I was gone. "

And so the Dutch Navy was the Grumman Tracker submarine destroyer aircraft, armed with two torpedoes in the direction of North Africa

"I'm afraid, a little bit about the torpedoes," says Van Eijck. "But I didn't care because I just wanted to Get Out of it. No way back was to go to the Navy, to me. "

Flying 5,000 feet above The Mediterranean sea in fuel saving, Van Eijck was all alone in the sky.

"I know how Sgt Meyer must have felt," he says. "Because it is what I felt. It was The Best ever; you are doing something that everyone says can't be done, and it is all you. Everything you need in this Big Machine , and you are more powerful than any other, all lonely in this Big Sky and. "

dick suddenly, and I realize that he's crying.

"no one can take it away from them," he says, choking on his words. "It was wonderful, so powerful. I can still feel it now. And I was totally convinced that I can do this. "

I remember Van Eijck, the as Sgt Meyer in The Cockpit , trying to figure out where he went and what he did, he called his wife on the radio to calm himself. I question Van Eijck, when he thought of his own family, as he flew into the unknown.

"My Mother ," he says quietly. "Yes, I thought of My Mother . A week or so ago, I had sent her a gift. It was a silver cross. And you have to guess, I was up to something, My Mother . "

Van Eijck is now fighting to master his tears and asks for a moment of a break, so he can drink his coffee. The Wind chimes hanging from the ceiling, you knock gently against each other in the breeze slips in from the open window, filling our silence with a jangled, staccato-music. The yellowed newspaper clippings on the Table to flutter and Curl .

Dutch Newspapers Van Eijck referred to as "joy-vlieger" - a joy-flyer, " I thought, 'If I see the country is beautiful, these Navy guys need to, I can fly!'"

He smooths back his white hair.

benghazi, long reads, netherlands, malta

Source of news: bbc.com