arpo june 2018 3 - the association of retired police...

ARPO June 2018 3

ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED POLICE OFFICERS

PRESIDENTRobert Livoti

(631) 909-4008e-mail: [email protected]

1st VICE PRESIDENTDouglas Stiegelmaier


2ND VICE PRESIDENTBlair E. Beaudet(631) 261-9686

e-mail: [email protected]

RECORDING SECRETARYRichard Scibilia(516) 626-1569

FINANCIAL SECRETARYJim Mezey

(516) [email protected]

TRUSTEESMichael J. Priolo(516) 647-5428

e mail: [email protected]

Mitch Blau (516) 775-1129


Don Pospisil(516) 354-5652


QUARTERMASTERDouglas Stiegelmaier

EDITOR Robert Livoti

ADVERTISING DIRECTORDave Fischer

(516) 624-6973 [email protected]

CPARobert J. Mitchell(516) 747-4058


TREASURERTony Famulari


JUDGE ADVOCATELiam F. Twomey(516) 674-6100


CHAPLAINRay Leonhard

(516) 747-7513e-mail: raygin2@hotmail

SERGEANTS-AT-ARMSAl Bonfardino(516) 538-8248


Edward D. Wahl(516) 579-6592


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4 ARPO June 2018

Presidents Message....................................Bob Livoti We had a busy month last month with all the activities going on with ARPO. A surprise addition was an order from the Commissioner inviting all retired and active members to the NCPD Military Service Ceremony. On June 4th, the Nassau County Police Department held a Military Service Ceremony for all active and retired members of the Police Department at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. The ceremony was an effort to recognize the sworn and civilian members that have served our country in the Armed Forces. The Department issued Military Service Bars and certificates to all members in attendance. Families and friends of participants were cordially invited to attend. I’ll have some photos of the ceremony in the September issue as this occurred after our newsletter was printed and mailed out. I would like to wish all of our dad’s out there a Happy Father’s Day. I hope all of you enjoyed your special day. We will be taking a break from our ARPO meetings and newsletters as there are no meetings or newsletters during the months of July and August. The PBA is filing suit against the new County Exec as she has turned out to be anti labor. Her attitude has done a one eighty since she was interviewed before the election as to her support of not only members of the department but also all county employees and she doesn’t think they deserve their contracted benefits. What a complete turn around she has done. The PBA and the other unions fought for those benefits and signed a contract with the County and now she wants to throw it all aside and does not support the written contract. Speaking of being anti labor, Governor Cuomo is still burying NYS taxpayers. The state is the bigger debtor to the NYS Retirement System. New York has the highest debt per taxpayer than any other state in the country thanks to him. You can bet that he’s digging a bigger hole for taxpayers in this coming election in November. With all that is going on in Albany within the Governors office, are we going to see another indictment in his office? The Democrats aren’t doing too well up there as more and more are getting indicted for one thing or another. The dates of the 2019 Nassau Blue Reunion will be January 18-20, 2019. Save the dates and make your reservations when the time comes. Remember all the snow they had here last January. It will be a good time to take mom away on vacation to a warmer climate. I hope everyone has a great summer. Get some sunshine

and enjoy yourselves. Don’t forget the ARPO Fishing trip on June 20th out of Freeport. Remember, we will be back in September and will continue where we left off. Notes from Dave….. Wishing a Happy Fathers Day to all our Dads and Fathers out there on Sunday, June 17th. Flag day, is June 14th, fly your flag, EVERYDAY.....I would like to thank some friends of ARPO who have supplied give-aways for distribution to attending members at our meetings, including, Angela Roche, mgr and Connie at Walgreens in Mineola, Chris Wolff, mgr at TD Bank in East Norwich, Barbara Kaplan, of the All Kids Fair and up coming “Over 50 Fair being held on Sunday, September 30th, at the Huntington Hilton, a terrific event, especially if you are over 50, Kelly Pagliuca, Asst mgr at NEFCU, Huntington, Kevin klein, mgr at Walgreens, Glen Cove, Chris Gennari, mgr at Rite Aid, Oyster Bay. Don Vultaggio (Chairman) Jayne (Exec Assist) and the entire crew at ARIZONA Beverage Co. for samples of their fine products, Best wishes for a speedy recovery to our good friend, Ramay Winchester, following her recent surgery. Remember members, ARPO has no meeting in July, or August...... TRIVIA....Did you know that it was June 12,1994, that Nicole Brown Simpson & Ron Goldman were murdered in L.A.? June 1, 2009, GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy .....June 3, 1992 President Bill Clinton appeared on the Arsenio Hall show and played the Saxophone, June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot & killed in the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. by Sirhan Sirhan....June 7, 1990, Universal Studios opened in Orlando...........The Arkansas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North Americas only remaining flock of Whooping Cranes. Did you know?? Texas, has more farms (247,500) and more farmland than any other State (130 million acres) Texas is the #1 producer of oil, cotton & wool. Now you know......Florida has 663 miles of beaches, 11,000 miles of rivers, streams & waterways, and believe it or not, 7,700 lakes, ten acres or larger in size. TRIVIA....Texas has the 825,000 acre King Ranch which is bigger than the State of Rhode Island and has more than 2,000 miles of fencing........Did you know that the Texas State Capitol dome in Austin was designed to be 7 feet higher than the U.S. Capitol dome in Washington D.C.? Well, now you know........In the last but not least department, once again, I would like to thank longtime WCBS Radio Disc Jockey, Don K. Reed for joining us at our May meeting. That’s it for now, so stay healthy & beat the system, Dave Fischer, a/k/a Mr Tchotchke.....10-4

ARPO June 2018 5

Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys ...................................................Bob Livoti Roy Rogers! Who doesn’t remember him. Saturday afternoon at the local movie theater, you put down your 25 cents for a ticket and you saw the latest Roy Rogers movie with a second feature film and 30 cartoons. Do you remember those days? There was Dale Evens, Roy’s dog Bullet and of course Roy’s side kick Gabby Hayes. Roy Rogers and Dale Evens were American idols that many of us grew up with through our younger years. “HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU”. The young guns may not understand the meaning of this, but you would! Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye, November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998) was an American singer and actor. He was one of the most popular Western stars of his era. Known as the “King of the Cowboys”, he appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show. In many of his films and television episodes, he appeared with his wife, Dale Evans; his golden palomino, Trigger; and his German shepherd dog, Bullet. His show was broadcast on radio for nine years and then on television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick, often Pat Brady, Andy Devine, George “Gabby” Hayes, or Smiley Burnette. In his later years, Rogers lent his name to the franchise chain of Roy Rogers Restaurants.THE END OF AN ERA.......The Roy Rogers Museum in Branson , MO closed its doors forever on December 12, 2009. The contents of the museum were sold at a public auction. Roy Rogers told his son, if the museum ever operates at a loss, close it, and sell the contents. He complied. Here is a partial listing of some of the items that were sold at auction...Roy ‘s 1964 Bonneville sold for $254,500. It was estimated to sell between 100 and 150 thousand dollars. His script book from the January 14,1953 episode of This Is Your Life sold for $10,000 (EST. $800-$1,000). A collection of signed baseballs (Pete Rose, Duke Snyder, and other greats) sold for $3,750. A collection of signed bats (Yogi Berra, Enos Slaughter, Bob Feller, and others) sold for $2,750. Trigger ‘s saddle and bridle sold for $386,500 (EST. 100-150 K). One of many of Roy ‘s shirts sold for $16,250 and one of his many cowboy hats sold for $17,500. One set of boot spurs sold for $10,625 (he never used a set of spurs on Trigger). A life size shooting gallery sold for $27,500.

Various chandeliers sold from $6,875 to $20,000, very unique and artistic in their western style. A signed photograph by Don Larsen taken during his perfect game in the world series against the Dodgers on Oct. 8, 1953, along with a signed baseball to Roy from Don, sold for $2,500. Two fabulous limited edition BB guns in their original boxes with numerous photos of Roy, Dale, Gabby, and Pat sold for $3,750.

A collection of memorabilia from his shows entertaining the troops in Vietnam sold for $938. I never knew he was there. His flight jacket sold for $7,500. His set of dinnerware plates and silverware sold for $11,875. The Bible they used at the dinner table every night sold for $8,750. One of several of his guitars sold for $27,500. Nellybelle sold for $116,500. A fabulous painting of Roy,Dale, Pat, Buttermilk, Trigger and Bullet sold for $10,625. One of several sets of movie posters sold for $18,750. A black and white photograph of Gene Autry with a touching inscription from Gene to Roy sold for $17,500. A Republic Productions Poster bearing many autographs of the people that played in Roy‘s movies sold for $11,875. Dale’s red and white plastic parade saddle, expected to bring $20,000 to $30,000, sold for $104,500. The saddle was displayed on Dale’s horse Buttermilk in the Branson Museum.

Buttermilk, who died at the age of 31, fetched $25,000, less than his pre-auction estimate of $30,000 to $40,000. Buttermilk was a young colt when he was rescued by a cattle farmer on his way to the slaughterhouse. The farmer bought him from a horse trader and he had been severely abused which resulted in a very unkind demeanor. The new owners quickly began to work with him, and through lots of dedication and care he eventually came around to become a friendly, affectionate and playful horse.

After renaming the bubbly Quarter Horse Soda, Randall introduced Soda to Dale Evans because her movie horse Koko was too much to handle and also resembled Trigger too much. Dale fell in love with Soda and bought him immediately. He was renamed Buttermilk after Dale saw a cloud pattern in the sky that reminded her of the Hoagy Carmichael’s song, “Ole Buttermilk Sky.” Dale rode Buttermilk in almost all of Roy’s movies and in all but six of The Roy Rogers Show television episodes that aired from 1951-57. A true Quarter Horse, Buttermilk displayed bursts of speed and could outrun Trigger. On the set, Roy asked Dale to please hold Buttermilk back when riding alongside him, since Trigger always had to lead. One of many pairs of Roy ‘s boots sold for

6 ARPO June 2018

$21,250. Trigger sold for $266,500. The horse Trigger Jr. was expected to fetch

$30,000 to $50,000 but realized $18,750. Trigger Jr. (1941-1969) was a purebred Tennessee Walking Horse named Allen’s Gold Zephyr who was bred by C. O. Barker of Readyville, Tennessee.

Paul K. Fisher of Souderton, Pennsylvania, who claimed to be the world’s largest breeder and dealer in yellow horses, sold Trigger Jr. to Roy Rogers in 1948 when he was still registered as Allen’s Gold Zephyr. Fisher often took his horses to the Madison Square Garden Rodeo to show or sell and Roy stated that it took him six years to buy Trigger Jr. – finally succeeding after Fisher was forced into a well publicized dispersal sale in 1947.

Trigger Jr. had beautiful conformation and a very stylish way of going. He was perfectly schooled and could accomplish a variety of difficult tricks including high stepping dances – always a crowd pleaser on Roy’s national tours and the perfect protege to Trigger.

Bullet was expected to fetch $10,000 to $15,000 but sold for $35,000. He was an AKA Registered German Shepherd originally given the name of “Bullet Von Berge”. He was billed as the ‘wonder dog’, and made his debut in the Roy Rogers film Spoiler’s of the Plains in 1951, produced by Republic Pictures. Bullet was a regular on The Roy Rogers Show on NBC television from 1951-1957 and CBS from 1961-64. In real life the German Shepherd that played Bullet had the same name, and was also the family’s pet.

“This highly anticipated event brought out thousands of Roy and Dale fans whose emotions and memories flooded our galleries,” said Cathy Elkies, Director of Iconic Collections at Christies. “We were privileged to handle a collection that resonated so deeply with so many people.”

Linda Kohn and Joseph Sherwood of High Noon Western Americana added: “We were thrilled that the collection has found its way into homes of Roy and Dale fans around the world insuring that their legacy continues. The highlight of the week was the salesroom’s spontaneous round of “Happy Trails” sung at the conclusion of the auction.”One of Roy and Dale’s nine children, Roy Rogers Jr, said the sale of the Roy Rogers Museum was the most difficult decision for our family to make. “Dad acknowledged many years ago that if the museum ever became difficult to maintain after he died, then we should let it go. We thought we’d always be able

Nellybell was a TV icon manufactured from good old American steel a 1946 Willys CJ-2A Jeep with some very innovative bodywork. It was in fact owned by Roy, but was driven in the show by his comic sidekick, Pat Brady (1914-1972).

to keep it open, but my dad, smart as he was, knew that some day his fans would get older and they would slowly become unable to travel to Missouri,” Rogers Jr. said. Do you remember the 1938 movie “The Adventures of Robin Hood”, with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland? Well, Olivia rode Trigger in that movie. Trigger was bred on a farm co-owned by Bing Crosby. Roy bought Trigger on a time payment plan for $2,500. Roy and Trigger made 188 movies together. Trigger even outdid Bob Hope by winning an Oscar in the movie Son of Paleface in 1953.

It is extremely sad to see this era lost forever. Despite the fact that Gene and Roy ‘s movies, as well as those of other great characters, can be bought or rented for viewing, today’s kids would rather spend their time playing video games.

Today it takes a very special pair of parents to raise their kids with the right values and morals. These were the great heroes of our childhood, and they did teach us right from wrong, and how to have and show respect for each other and the animals that share this earth. You and I were born at the right time. We were able to grow up with these great people even if we never met them. In their own way they taught us patriotism and honor. We learned that lying and cheating were bad, and that sex wasn’t as important as love. We learned how to suffer through disappointment and failure and work through it. Our lives were drug free. So it’s good-bye to Roy and Dale, Gene and Hoppy, the Lone Ranger, and Tonto. Farewell to Sky King and Superman and Sgt. Friday. Thanks to Capt. Kangaroo, Mister Rogers, and Capt. Noah and all those people whose lives touched ours and made them better. It was a great ride through childhood. HAPPY TRAILS MY FRIENDS.

ARPO June 2018 7

Bullet and Buttercup in the Roy Rogers Museum

The museum was located in Branson, MO

Trigger

One of the Museum displays

Gabby Hayes and Dale Evans

Nudie Taylor boots: $21,250

8 ARPO June 2018

The Guest of Ireland, WWII German Airmen at Curragh, the war’s most bizarre POW camp .......Bob Livoti Prisoner of war camps existed across the United Kingdom during World War Two, but they also existed in Ireland. One of them known as the Curragh at Brandon Point in County Kerry was one of the war’s strangest camps of all. During World War II, a Canadian bomber flying from a base in Scotland crashed in what the crew thought was the vicinity of their airfield. Spotting a pub, they entered to celebrate their survival with a quick drink but were stunned to see a group of soldiers wearing Nazi uniforms and singing in German. Even more confusingly, the Germans responded to their entry by shouting at them to “go to their own bar.” The crew was soon given an explanation: after getting lost they crashed in the Republic of Ireland… and now they were captured, just like the Jerries.

H a v i n g n e g l i g i b l e military power, Ireland was a neutral nation during the war;

Prime Minister Éamon de Valera went to great lengths to maintain that neutrality. As part of this policy, he made a deal with both the British and German governments: combatants of either country could be detained if found in Ireland and interned there for the duration of the war. Technically, the men were not prisoners of war but “guests of the State,” with an obligation on the state to prevent them from returning to the war. A 19th century military camp named Curragh Camp or “K-Lines” was designated to hold “guests” of both nationalities – along with a much higher number of Irish citizens who were imprisoned because they were considered a threat to the country’s neutrality, such as IRA men and pro-Nazi activists.

It was an odd existence. The guards had blank rounds in their rifles, visitors were permitted (one officer shipped his wife over), and the internees were allowed to come and go. Fishing excursions, fox hunting, golf and trips to the pub in the town of Naas helped pass the time.

At first, authorities looked the other way when British aircraft crashed or emergency landed in Ireland, allowing the crews to make their way home. The appearance of a German aircrew in 1940, however, forced them to start taking their job seriously. Lieutenant Kurt Mollenhauer’s Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft was taking meteorological readings off the Irish coast when they got lost in the mist and hit a mountain, with two crewmen suffering injuries.

They were captured and taken to Curragh. They experienced some harsh treatment first but the Department of External Affairs quickly requested the army to improve their living conditions. With some Germans in actual custody, it was now also necessary to detain British pilots who landed in Ireland to maintain neutrality and the two sides had to be given the same treatment – preferably a lenient one to avoid angering Britain.

Between 1940 and 1943, some 40 British and 200 German military personnel were taken to K-Lines, mainly air crews and men from shipwrecked U-boats. In appearance, the camp was a regular POW camp

The Germans enjoying a

night out at a local pub

ARPO June 2018 9

with guard towers, barbed wire and huts built on short stilts to prevent tunneling to freedom, though the fence separating the British and German sides was a mere four feet tall. Unlike in most camps, however, the guards had blank rounds in their rifles and the prisoners were allowed to run their own bars with duty-free alcohol.

The British bar was run on an honor system, with everyone pouring for themselves and recording their consumption in a book. Prisoners were also allowed to borrow bicycles and leave the camp, provided they signed a parole paper at the guardhouse, giving their word of honor not to escape and to return in time. Pub visits, with separate bars for groups of different nationalities, evening dances with the locals, fishing

and golfing trips and fox hunts were the norm, with one English officer even having his horse transported there from home and others having their families join them in Ireland for the duration of the war. Some prisoners ended up marrying local girls and one German prisoner, Georg Fleischmann, stayed and became an important figure in Irish film industry. While both sides enjoyed the chance to sit out the war in reasonable comfort and without dishonorable behavior such as desertion, the Germans were generally more uptight about their situation. Despite being given some money to buy themselves civilian clothes for trips to nearby towns, the preferred to stay in uniform inside the camp, planted gardens, made tennis courts, held

British prisoners at the camp

The camp had spot lights illuminating the camp during the night time

10 ARPO June 2018

exercise classes. On one occasion, they even set up a court to convict a comrade for treason, though the defendant couldn’t be executed, as the Irish refused to furnish the Germans with a rifle and a single bullet. Sometimes, German prisoners sang Nazi songs just to piss off of their British co-internees. The two nations held boxing and soccer matches, with a historical record noting a German victory of 8-2 at one.Escape attempts were rare. The Germans had no easy way of reaching continental Europe and the British had their own special problem, best demonstrated through the story of Roland “Bud” Wolfe. An American citizen, Wolfe signed up with the RAF before the U.S. entered the war, getting stripped of his American citizenship as a consequence. After flying cover for a ship convoy off Ireland, his Spitfire’s engine overheated and he had to land in the Republic of Ireland, where he was taken to the Curragh. Unwilling to sit out the war, he made his move two weeks after his capture, in December 1941. One day he walked out of the camp, deliberately “forgetting” his gloves. He quickly went back for them and left again without signing a new parole paper, so he now considered his escape to be a legitimate one. He had lunch at a nearby hotel, left without paying and made his way to nearby Dublin, where he boarded the first train to Belfast in Northern Ireland. To his surprise,

German Officer’s at the camp

Roland “Bud” Wolfe an American who had

joined the British RAF and crash landed in

Ireland. He walked out of the camp and took a train to Belfast and

later rejoined his RAF Squardon.

ARPO June 2018 11

his superiors were far from pleased when he reported at his base and he was quickly sent back across the border to the internment camp. The reason was that Ireland’s neutrality was important not only to the Irish but to Great Britain as well. Though Churchill considered Ireland’s refusal to fight a betrayal, he understood that a pro-Nazi Ireland would have allowed the Kriegsmarine to use its Atlantic ports and wreak havoc on vital convoys from America. In order to guarantee Ireland’s neutrality, however, the British also had to play fair and prevent K-Line internees from jeopardizing the diplomatic status quo by escaping whenever they pleased. As a result, attempts were sparse: Wolfe tried to escape again only to be captured this time around as well, finally settling into the relaxed life of the camp. There was an aborted tunneling attempt and a successful mass rush on the gate, which the Irish decided was a “legal” escape and the men who made it back to British territory were not returned. In 1943 it became clear that the Allies were slowly winning, British airmen were moved to a separate camp and secretly freed, while 20 Germans were allowed to rent residences in Dublin and attend the local colleges. All remaining German prisoners were repatriated after the war, ending the history of what might well have been history’s strangest, and possibly most comfortable, POW camp. The story of the British and German prisoners living together in Ireland, hushed up during and after the war, only came to light in the 1980s, when English novelist John Clive heard the story from a taxi driver who had served as a guard at Curragh, and decided to research the matter for a novel. In the early Forties two Canadian RAF airmen crash landed in Ireland, about 30 miles inland from Dublin. Disorientated as they emerged from their wreck, they thought they were close to their Scottish base. Spotting a pub, they decided to celebrate their survival but when they entered the saloon bar they found it full of Germans in Nazi uniforms who shouted at them to “go to their own bar”. The Nazis pointed at the public bar which turned out to be full of Allied men.

To the Canadians it seemed as if they had fallen down a rabbit hole and emerged in some kind of Wonderland where the Second World War had been reduced to a minor rivalry about which side of a pub to sit in. What they had actually discovered were the inmates of the Curragh, a prisoner of war camp that has been described as “Colditz meets Father Ted”.

Here guards had blank rounds in their rifles,

inmates were allowed to come and go, one officer had his horse shipped from England so he could fox hunt and – crucially for a country that stuck rigidly to the principle of wartime neutrality – Allied and Nazi prisoners co-existed peacefully on either side of a 4ft corrugated iron fence. One of the Allied men was Bud Wolfe, a young American volunteer for the RAF whose Spitfire came down in a peat bog in County Donegal in 1941.

The camp’s first permanent structures were built for British soldiers preparing for the Crimean War in the 1850s but by the time the Second World War broke out, Ireland was an independent state and determined to stay neutral. Accordingly, Eamonn de Valera’s government made a deal with Britain and Germany under which any soldier, sailor or airman from either side would be interned for the duration of the war. “De Valera was determined that nobody could look at Ireland from the outside and say it wasn’t being completely neutral,” says Professor Clair Wills of Queen Mary, University of London and author of That Neutral Island.

“They had no defences – no anti-aircraft guns, no navy. If they had been bombed it would have been catastrophic. And while Churchill felt personally betrayed by Irish neutrality, everyone else in the British government could see that neutrality was a good deal for Britain.” She says there was a high level of covert intelligence co-operation that the British public were not aware of. Furthermore, keeping Ireland neutral was definitely a better option than seeing it fall to Hitler. The interned servicemen were sent to the Curragh and it turned out to be a very cushy deal indeed. Some 40 British, Canadian, New Zealand, French and Polish airmen received full service pay, dined well in a country where meat and dairy products were unrestricted, had full access to duty-free alcohol, had their laundry done for them, were provided with a radio and newspapers from home and could borrow bicycles to leave the camp.

Some of them even brought their families to live nearby. Meanwhile more than 200 men from the German Navy and the Luftwaffe were treated almost as well. They spent their time planting gardens, making tennis courts, organising exercise classes and occasionally singing Nazi songs to taunt the Allies. All the internees were allowed to attend dances on Saturday nights, signed themselves out for weekend rounds of golf, fishing expeditions and played each other at boxing, table tennis and football. In one match that might be better forgotten the Germans beat the

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British 8-3.On the Allies’ side of the camp, a Spitfire pilot called Aubrey Covington organised a bar where drinks cost

10 US cents a shot and internees poured their own drinks. They wrote down what they owed in an honesty book. Some of the men felt guilty about the comfort of their situation while the war raged elsewhere. Pilot Officer Wolfe yearned to join the action and broke his parole, escaping into Northern Ireland. To his astonishment he was sent back to the camp by the British authorities – the principle of neutrality was too important to risk. Another time he was caught by the Irish and sent back. Aside from men such as Wolfe, the only truly disenchanted members of the camp were a much larger group of up to 2,000 Irish internees.

“The government rounded up anyone they thought might endanger neutrality – people suspected of IRA sympathies or of being Right wing Quisling types,” says Professor Wills. “They were uprooted from their families and jobs and were often very angry at the loss of their liberty. But from the point of view of the Allied and German men interned there it was jolly nice for them to have been sent to the Curragh.” While the detention of Irish internees has remained central to the story of that country’s neutrality, the PoW element of the Curragh camp became largely forgotten – helped by De Valera’s strict wartime censorship of the media. Knowledge of it was only revived when an English novelist called John Clive stumbled across the facts in the early Eighties.

Having moved to Ireland he heard the story from a taxi driver who had been a guard at the camp. When he could find only passing references to it in official sources he started his own research and interviewed 100 people who had been connected to the Curragh. He turned his findings into a thriller called Broken Wings. In 1999 the story of the camp was turned into a film, The Brylcreem Boys, with The Usual Suspects star Gabriel Byrne as the camp commander. Riverdance performer Jean Butler played a local girl caught in a love triangle with a Canadian and a German pilot. The biggest hurdle for the producers was convincing financiers that this was not some far-fetched nonsense on a par with Hollywood’s much-ridiculed tartan fantasy Brigadoon. They raised the money but the objection remained valid: the finished product was panned by critics who refused to believe that this mix of Dad’s Army, the Great Escape and MASH could ever have happened. “One wonders if The Brylcreem Boys bears any resemblance to its historical roots whatsoever,” sneered one reviewer.

Prisoners enjoy a day in the gym

ARPO June 2018 13

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ARPO FISHING TRIPJune 15, 2016

8:00 AM to 12 NOONAboard the “ CAPT. PETE “

540 Guy Lombardo Ave.Freeport, N.Y.

Cost $40 a person and includes:Fishing, Bait, Tackle, Soda, Beer, Water

Coffee, Bagels, DonutsBRING YOUR OWN LUNCH

Make your check payable toARPO and mail to:

Mitch Blau75 Wilson Street

Garden City, N.Y. 11530space is limited, so send check early

friends and family are welcome Questions: Contact Mitch Blau 516 317-4545


June 20, 2018

Cost $41 a person and includes

NEXT MEETINGS: June 13, 2018 Sept. 12, 2018

ARPO Collectible Coin 1 3/4” diameter

ARPO Key Fob 2” high

All items available from the ARPO Quartermaster

ARPO Belt buckleactual size 3 1/2” wide

New! ARPO “T”shirtwith new logo

Prsrt STDU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDFarmingdale, NY

Permit #125

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