I’m Byron, and much to the surprise of Indy, I’m not a dick. I live in Florida, and make beer for a living. Mmmm beer.

I’ve been interested in history since I was a child. My grandfather was a WW2 veteran. He was an Merchant Marine engineer aboard a couple liberty ships in the war. His convoys took him up and down the U.S. east coast, North Africa, Italy, England, and Scotland. His brother, 2nd Lt Cary Lewis Gray, was a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot during the war and gave the ultimate sacrifice in 1944. On June 17th his squadron was sent on a mission to knock out V-1 rocket launch sites in France. He was hit by AA fire and bailed out safely. He landed in a tree and was hidden from the Germans for three days in a cider barrel by a French farmer. Eventually Cary went to look for the allied forces and asked a French woman where the Americans were. However, she took him to the Germans (maybe she thought he was German from his blonde hair and blue eyes though that seems unlikely as he would have been speaking English, maybe she was scared, maybe she was a collaborator) It is believed that the Germans took him the Cherbourg and executed him before Cherbourg was liberated.

A group of Frenchmen and women in the 90’s dug up Cary’s P-47 outside the town of Brix, France and connected the plane to Cary by the serial number on the engine. The group built Cary a memorial, found my grandfather, and invited my family over for it’s commemoration. Quite an experience and one to never forget. https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=655&MemID=939