There were many different types of bullets used by the opposing armies during the battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Cavalry troopers used brass, rubber, or paper cased bullets for their carbines, while infantry used a wide variety of types and calibers of lead bullets. The “bullets,” more accurately called minie balls in honor of their French inventor, Claude-Etienne Mine (1804-1879), could once be found all over the battlefield, but have become very scarce in recent years. I can recall a visit to Gettysburg after a thunderstorm many years ago and finding a Confederate Gardner bullet on Cemetery Hill. The unfired and pristine two-ring minie, still packed with black powder, was likely lost b
While it is the brave Fighter Command pilots who flew during the Battle of Britain that stir the imagination and conjure up Churchill’s proud remembrance of “The Few,” there were many RAF pilots who were lost in action during the Battle of France or who died unceremoniously during training missions whose memory has faded into history. During the Battle of France more than 1,000 British aircraft were destroyed and more than 1,500 RAF personnel lost. In the months of the so-called “phony war,” the RAF lost many inexperienced pilots during training exercises. Flight Sergeant Emrys Ivor Lewis (531760) of No. 222 (Natal) Squadron was one of those young pilots. Lewis, a native of Wales, was jus
