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Lest We Forget

@lestweforget5

Currently suffering from--in the best possible way--MOTA brainrot. Meatball, Lemmons, Brady, Curt, and Dickie are my faves. Feel free to come ask me about my MOTA fics. Asks are ALWAYS welcome! (Follows back come from bastet55.)
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Sunward I've Climbed

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Summary: A Tale of Friendship and, eventually, Love in the Skies over War-Torn Europe

When the United States began integrating women into military units before and, especially, after Pearl Harbor--and not just confining them to important but still auxiliary units--it was decided that heavy bomber squadrons were a good place to relegate some of these pioneering women. There was an early, misguided belief that American heavy bombers were 'invincible,' though this would quickly be proven wrong, especially for the 100th Bomb Group, which would come to be known as the "Bloody Hundredth."

Mildred Brady, better known to her friends as "Millie," was one of ten women assigned to the 100th and its 35 original crews when it flew from America to England in June 1943. Serving at Thorpe Abbots from the beginning until Black Week, she would survive nineteen missions before being shot down. From combating prejudice as she did her duty as a gunner and engineer to fighting to survive as a POW, she would find strength in friendship and a level of tenacity she did not know she possessed.

Rating: Teen (chs. 1-17); Mature (chs. 18-25)

The Sunward Verse

#masters of the air#mota fic#john brady#ken lemmons#curtis biddick#dickie snyder
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Anonymous asked:

In a Curt and Dickie live AU - post war, one of the things Curt and Dickie push for post war (maybe decades after?? They have a lot to deal with) is a formal system/way to report sexual harassment. (Maybe with Maggie? And others?) it takes a few decades post war for something to be put in place and even longer for it be somewhat efficient and effective but it does help.

Good way for them to help, both would have had some issues around what happened to Millie, both with her previous pilot and as a POW.

In the meantime though, they work with Buck and Bucky (who both stayed in the military?) with a very informal system of doing their best to make sure any women are at least with crews that are respectful/transferring bad apples to non integrated roles.

Maybe??

xx

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

Apologies for the delay in answering your ask. My brain has not been brain-ing for MOTA ideas this week.

I could definitely see this.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

Was thinking about how the POWs have to be both overprotective of the female POWs but also subtle about it? (Can’t react how they want, have to hide them away etc.) and also the nightmares and issues that Gerry mentioned Hambone having in that article? And how it would play out in the immediate weeks and months after returning to America especially for Brady’s crew (and Hambone and Johnny who both have wives/girlfriends) (Solly?).

And like how Gerry had met Millie in hospital? And how the very quiet, polite (scared) engineer isn’t really how Hambone had described her to be in his letters?

And maybe how, through Hambones nightmares, and just how protective he is, of both her and Millie, Gerry gets somewhat of an idea of what their time in Germany was like?

I don’t know if it’s a head cannon or just a word dump but it’s something?!

xx

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

Apologies for the delay in answering your ask. My brain has not been brain-ing for MOTA ideas this week.

I think you're probably very, very heartbreakingly right. It's a strange dichotomy how the people the POWs are most concerned about (the women ... and Solly) are those they have to be the most careful about protecting, lest by trying to protect them they draw unwanted attention from the Germans. And yeah, Millie before Munster and after her repatriation is so different. Strikingly different, and Gerry can read between the lines of what is said and isn't, can read the silences and the way Hambone sometimes calls for Millie in a nightmare, and she can put some of the pieces together and it isn't a pretty picture.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

I can't remember specifically if it is written but pre Munster did Maggie know about John and Millie? Or maybe suspected?

And if she didn't (which I'm pretty sure of) when do you think she found out? Maybe Kenny mentioned something? Or in one of the letters or calls once Maggie is back in America?

(I think Millie wouldn't have risked the censors, in a mix of not wanting to talk about it while John is still a POW. an abundance of caution and old habits)

And what do think she reaction would have been?

Love your work

xx

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask and your kind words!

Ooooh ... I don't recall every specifying that Maggie for sure knew. I don't think Millie told anyone but Kenny about her relationship with Brady pre-Munster, but Maggie, as someone who knew her better than most, though not as well as Kenny, could well have ended up suspecting.

I could see Kenny mentioning something to her at some point between Munster and the news of Millie's updated status arriving just before Christmas. But yeah, I don't think Millie would have put it in a letter once she was back in the states. I think Maggie already knows by the time Millie calls her up during the events of Homeward Bound and asks her to be her maid-of-honor at the New York wedding.

Let's say Kenny does tell her. What her reaction would have been would depend on whether she had already suspected something. Probably some surprise. Probably worry about the risks for Millie's career, although fraternizing charges aren't exactly a risk post-Munster. But at the end of the day, if Millie's happy, she's happy for her.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

“Yeah, you got it. We know she bailed, but nothing more than that. And”—he paused abruptly—“you bailed, too.”

Not gonna lie this line got me so bad. Like, Crank acknowledging how much every thing Millie went through has changed her, and how he is both

A) scared of a similar thing happening to Betty

And

B) the thought of Betty going through it all alone with no one else from her crew?

Terrifying

Won’t lie though, loved the amount of Crank in this fic.

What a legend.

Love your work! xx

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

Crank really is awesome, isn't he?! We need more Crank in stories. But yeahhhhhhh ... the potential parallels to Millie's situation and all the unknowns with what happened to Betty is really hard for all of them at this point, exacerbated by her age and the thought of her being alone. Ouch.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

What do you think Millie’s plans would have been for her future before John?

Like if she had never fallen in love with John (and had completed her 25) would she have lived the rest of her life in Arkansas?

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

I think Millie would have probably lived the rest of her life in Arkansas or somewhere else nearby if Cleatus/Kenny had moved. She would have been a piano teacher and been a doting aunt to Cleatus and Kenny's children, almost certainly never marrying herself. She would have been happy and had a fulfilling life, but her life with Brady is happier.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

Not sure if this is a head cannon or an idea but

Hambone being nervous about being a dad? Because of stuff from Germany, and like the anger issues and stuff.

Millie reminding him that

a) he isn’t alone and has a whole bunch of people who love him and will help

and

b) how gentle he has been with Millie (especially when sick or in a bad way) in her mind proves that he will be fine

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

Because of lingering trauma from Germany and PTSD (as we'd call it now) ... oh, I could definitely see this. I think it might well take at least a drink or two before he'd breathe a word of it to Millie, though.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

If Millie did not know how to throw a good punch from growing up with two brothers, they definitely made sure she could before she went off to army training.

I think they would all be of the mindset of “I’d rather you know how to throw a punch and not need to, then need to throw a punch and no be able to”

If it wasn’t for going down over Germany, Millies cutting glare, a few words (eg. that bit in chapter 5) both inherited and taught by Aunt Hassel in combination with her rank and general reputation would have seen her through the war.

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

Oooh, I can definitely see this. Boys being boys, I expect they probably showed her how to as kids. The vast majority of the time, one of them would probably be with her like at school and stuff, and if someone started bothering her, Cleatus or Kenny would generally be there before she would ever have to worry about throwing punches, but they know they can't always be there, so I can definitely see them teaching her under that mindset.

Being known as Biddick's engineer was also protective. No one with half a brain would want to mess with Biddick's crew, especially after the bar 'accident' that befell her first pilot.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

That anon post about if anyone saw Millie as she was found and taken to hospital would be like really good Inso for a nightmare for Millie?

Like can't move, in agonising pain, trying to get someone to help but its just the guards and people from the hospital around her taunting her?

Or like post repatriation, she's stuck there as they are marched by her and they can't hear or notice her? Or they try to help and get shot by the guards?

Yup.

Big ouch.

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

😱😭

Okay, Nonnie, I love that you all can play off each other and get inspirations from each others' posts, and this is genius in a scary-sob-ouch kind of way. Definitely sounds like something awful your sub-conscious could come up with for a nightmare.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

Do you think Millie and John would have thought/did think about adoption? Especially before she became pregnant with her first child and they wouldn't have known if they could have children?

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

This is a very good question for which I don't currently have an answer, but I will definitely file this away in my notes to consider.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

Are Millie and Betty the youngest of the original 10 women in the 100th?

If they are, and they were the only two who had been POWs, I’d imagine it would have been a heavy thing for the others especially Lillian and Florence as officers with that extra responsibility?

Idk 🤷‍♀️

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask!

Betty is the youngest of the original 10. Frances, Florence, Maggie, Rose, and Gladys were all born in 1919-1920, so with Millie being born in Dec. 1922, that would definitely leave her as one of the younger ones, but since I don't have birthdays for Helen, Lilian, or Doris, I'm not sure if she would be the second youngest, but she could well be.

(Lilian and Florence were interred in Switzerland for the remainder of the war, after being shot down in August and September 1943, respectively, and the internment camps there were not much better than some POW camps.)

Regardless, I do think there was a heavy weight on their shoulders, especially Florence as the sole officer standing of the original 10 following Regensburg. For Lilian, it's as much the weight of the unknown as worry about the younger women. She goes down at Regensburg, and a lot of the 100th's losses happens after that point, so for a while, she doesn't know what happened to everyone else at Regensburg, to all her friends afterwards. And Florence has several more weeks of trying to hold the pieces together before she's shot down in early September on the Stuttgart raid, and then news about Black Week reaches them eventually, and they were probably left with the burning question of who actually survived among their friends...

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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Anonymous asked:

In Brothers Lost and Found "At Home" any head cannons for which Stalag Curt and Dickie were in? Moosburg or a different one?

Love your work! xx

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask and your kind words!

Curt and Dickie were at Moosburg when the Stalag Luft III boys found them, but I had never thought about where they might have been before that point. There were Americans at Stalag VII-A from 1942 onwards, so they could have been sent there originally after Regensburg.

#the sunward verse#ask answered
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