New Member who built 450 sidecars back in the day

Sweet SL-440 Sidecar Rejuvenated by Roman

Recently I received an email from a gentleman stating that he had one of my original sidecar body's, and if I could build him a frame. I explained to him that even if I built him a frame he would still have to get a friend that new how to weld and fabricate to make the mounts and attaching rods. He wrote back stating that he was a computer guy, and had made a living in that trade his entire life, but that he was also a car guy that could fabricate in metal and was a proficient welder. I told Roman that if that was the case I had a Photobucket account with pictures of my sidecars, frames, mounts, and rods so that he could see just how they were made. I also mentioned that if he cared to build his own frame and components he shouldn't have more than $300 in materials. We sent emails back and forth along with dimensions and a material list of what would be needed. A few days later I get an email with pictures of a completed frame ready to be mounted onto Roman's motorcycle. He also mentioned that he sent the body down to the painters to be sand blasted and painted. Evidently somewhere in the body's history one of the owners painted some of the body panels in gold. It was funny to see one of my old body's in the pictures Roman sent me. The model that Roman has was the SL-440 and they had the color in the fiberglass gel coat and were offered in Black or White only. In all I sold around 50 of the SL-440's. The SL-440's were different than the earlier more popular SL-220 model in that I added 4" to the passenger compartment, not that the SL-220 was cramped, but I wanted to add a dash board so that the customer could install a radio for a little more enjoyment. At that time in history the modern day bagger bike didn't exist. Vetter and others made custom wind screens but to add a radio was out of the ordinary, not that some didn't have radios, it's just that my customers didn't.The SL-440 also had a bolt on fender that could be removed in a matter of a few minutes. If a customer is going to run into something the fender is the part of the body that will suffer the damage. I had a standing guarantee that for $100 I would replace the fender to any customer that smashed one up on the SL-440 model. Not one customer ever collected on the guarantee.

Roman spent less than two weeks working at night and on weekends building the frame and mounts for his new sidecar. We had many emails going back and forth over those two weeks but in the end Roman built one good looking rig. Future plans are to have me stitch up the upholstery and a cover for the passenger compartment. I think we called the cover, a tonneau cover back in the day.

I'm proud of what Roman has accomplished rejuvenating his little sidecar. The things that a guy like Roman can do are becoming a lost art in this day and age. When I was a kid growing up every kid in the neighborhood could make something, but in today's world that is a thing of the past.

I hate to think that this Sidecar hobby that we all love so will also some day be a thing of the past. With a limited number of manufacturers and one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers halting production of sidecars I'm not sure what's in future regarding sidecars. I don't see any young guys coming along like so many of us did back in the day to build these crazy things. Think about the last time you attempted to explain what sidecars were all about to a friend or a stranger asking, and most just didn't get it. Well thanks for reading and keep the bottom side down as you make your way around some part of the the world in that crazy contraption called a Motorcycle Sidecar.

Johnny Sweet

Sweet Sidecars

VERY,VERY NICE..............fly

Larry Dodsons one of a kind Sweet Sidecar

Back in the 90's I was building a few sidecars after moving South to Carolina. A friend and I were at motorcycle show in Charlotte North Carolina displaying my Sweet SL-440 and my Classic model sidecars when a gentleman rolls up to me in a wheelchair and asks if he could talk to me. I slid up a chair and we began a most interesting conversation. Larry had an idea for a sidecar rig that was different from anything that I had ever seen before. He wanted to transfer into the sidecar from his wheelchair and be able to drive form the sidecar. He also mentioned that he wanted the sidecar to be mounted on the left so that when driving he could stop and do his banking and at the same time could see on coming traffic, and not have the motorcycle hindering his view. As soon as he mentioned his idea my mind raced back to when I was living in New Hampshire years earlier and had designed a 4 wheel sidecar rig that had two wheels on the sidecar and the body was shaped like an Indy car. I had it designed so that when the handle bars turned the front sidecar wheel would turn with it. Before I finished my Indy sidecar I made a trip up to the New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles and asked about registering my one of a kind sidecar rig. I was told that because it had 4 wheels I would have to register it as a car and it would have to have to pass all the requirement that a car had to. At the time a thought passed threw my mind " were would I attach the seat belt". In the end I never finished the 4 wheel Indy sidecar rig. Little did I know that I would later move to the South and could have driven it without ever a word, I digress.

Larry and I drew out some ideas and I told him that the only problem that I saw was that Harley didn't make a bike with an automatic transmission, but that Honda had in the late 1970's. Larry said that he would find one and have it shipped to my home. A few weeks later a guy shows up with a running Honda 750 with the Honda matic transmission.

I got out my Classic sidecar mold, it was a copy of the metal Harley sidecar body that was built starting sometime in the 1930's till 1963 or so. I had built around fifty Classic units and had a few to build for guys in the surrounding states.

At the time I was heading up an Engineering team and had fourteen or fifteen Engineers under me and I spent all day long putting out fires. Engineers can and are difacult to deal with at times. It's not like when I worked in a design team sculpturing car body's or various other products. In those venues we design by comity and everyone works for the good of the project. Mechanical Engineers are in most cases prima donnas and only their idea is the good idea. I had the Engineering license so I was the guy in charge. So working at nights and weekends on projects like Larry's sidecar kept me sane.

I set Larry's sidecar up like any other in that the set up was the same but the implementation of the controls got a little complex. I ended up using a Honda car rack and pinion steering unit that I cut one end off. I then installed the rack and pinion into the sidecar and fabricated a push pull rod that extended over to the motorcycle. On the lower end of the front end of the motorcycle I fabricated a bracket to attach the push pull rod to. Earlier I calculated the steering differentials and were the pivot points should be. Larry had limited mobility in both arms and hands so the steering had to be lock to lock without to much resistance. In the end Larry brought me a padded U shaped devise that he placed his hand into. He could grasp the devise and it swiveled on the small steering wheel. The other hand, his left was used for the throttle and brakes. With the sidecar body on the left all Larry had to do was reach over the right side of the body and pull or push the shifting lever in or out of gear. I ordered longer throttle cables and placed the brake and twist throttle on a tube that was attached on the left side of the steering wheel.It was simple to drive, reach down and pull it in gear and a twist of the throttle and he was off. To brake all he had to do was push on the brake lever, not pull. Remember he has limited mobility. I used the front disk brake and installed an additional disk brake on the sidecar wheel. No rear brake was ever used. I attached the two brakes together and they worked perfectly from day one. I had studied brake dynamics and brake bias at my day at General Motors Institute and it came in handy.

Once the basic sidecar was completed I still had the wheelchair lift to design. I got into a freeze design wise. I walked past Larry's sidecar rig for a year going to and from work and couldn't figure it out. Larry would make his way down on some of the weekends and drive his rig around my yard all afternoon, but still no wheelchair lift. Then one day I woke up and the entire design was right in front of me. It took around two weeks and I had it working. It was set up so that Larry would open the sidecar door and transfer from the wheelchair into the sidecar. He would then close the door and hit one of three toggle switches. An jacking arm in the back of the rig drops down and lifts up the back of the sidecar. A second switch activates a rotating arm around to the side of the sidecar. A third switch operates a linear actuator that drops the arm down so that Larry can slide the wheelchair onto the arm. He then lifts the arm and it swings the wheelchair around to the back of the sidecar. One last triggering of the jack switch and the sidecar is dropped back down and he's "good to go".

Larry drove his rig around eight to ten thousand miles a year and made many friends. It had been over twenty years since Larry had been out on the road. He was a Veteran and after the war rode until his accident. To me it was one of the most rewarding projects that I had ever worked on and in doing so I gained a true friend. Larry had shoulder surgery and can't drive his rig any longer. We have talked about changing the steering to an electric power assist unit. I'm still looking into it. Also the sidecar wheel has a bent shaft and it's set with camber built into it. All these years Larry thought that was the way it was suppose to be. The original wheel had a .750" grade 8 shaft and it bent early on and never moved any further than what's in the picture. I have a BMW wheel with the 25mm bearings that I will use in the future.

I hope you enjoyed reading about and seeing pictures of Larry's one of a kind sidecar. Larry was out of my life for over ten years and I didn't know if he was still with us. It's been an absolute pleasure once again hooking up with an old friend.

Johnny Sweet

Sweet Sidecars

With a smile on his face Larry is living the dream.

Larry had his rig Custom Painted from the frame up a few years ago.

Larry never forgetting those that got left behind. " We will never forget"

Larry running down the road.

Larry's sidecar rig before the wheelchair lift was designed

Johnny's original 2 wheel sidecar designed in the 1980's

Johnny and Larry at the Charlotte bike show in 1998

Johnny,

Thanks for replying to this thread and bringing it back to the top of list.

I wanted to show you what we did with the one we bought for my wife Heather.

If you remember this is what our sidecar looks liked when we brought it home.

After some restoration and modifications to for her this is what we came up with.

You are a good man, Johnny Sweet. God Bless you for helping a veteran.

ehadams - 9/3/2012 10:22 PM

Johnny,

Thanks for replying to this thread and bringing it back to the top of list.

I wanted to show you what we did with the one we bought for my wife Heather.

If you remember this is what our sidecar looks liked when we brought it home.

After some restoration and modifications to for her this is what we came up with. 

You did a fantastic job on your sidecar. I especially like the wheel choice. The new modern day base coat clear coat paints make the lines jump out at you, very nice color selection. White has always looked good on the SL-440, in fact it also looked good on the SL-220.
It would be interesting to know if after all these years your rig still tracks straight without having to be tweaked. Once they were set up we never had to touch them again. A few of the customers installed air shocks on the Goldwing's and they could adjust the bike camber when the road had more run off than normal.
Going from memory, on your model I designed a top front mount to fit where the horn was bolted to the frame. We moved the horn, but I don't remember where we mounted it to. Some guys would bring in air horns and I would hook em up for them.
One other thing that I never figured out, Customers would bring in bikes and for some strange reason they would have the same bike model with serial numbers within 200 or 300. These would be total strangers who just happened to purchase the same type of bike and at the same time decided to purchase a sidecar. Many times this phenomenon happened. The strange thing was that I set each unit up the exact same way and one would shimmy and the other would not. I would install a VW shimmy damper on the problem unit and the shimmy would disappear. If the bikes in the shop at the same time were all different I would have never even thought about it, but with the bikes being the same model the problem jumped out at me. We built and raced what's called "Super Modified race car", and had very expensive scales. We would set the scales under the three wheels on the different sidecar rigs and do weight and balance calculations. The same type bike and sidecar would weigh out within a few pounds. We never did figure this one out, it was fun calculating center of gravity and Roll centers. Our entire group were all Engineers and today when I watch that nutty show about some actors playing the part of some nerd scientists I think of our group trying to figure out the secrets of why one sidecar rig shimmed and another would not. We even went as far as to measure the resistance on the front wheel/tires using a linear device we fabricated that pushed on the scales to measure the resistance. I always thought it funny that we could build and race World Class Championship Hydroplanes and the fastest circle track race cars in the world and couldn't figure out the why of two identical sidecar rigs shimming. The customer never new the difference because in the end the rigs drove straight and didn't shimmy with the needed modifications.
Over the years I've read different papers written on Leading link front ends and my newest project, a tilting trike will be using one, but back in the day there was no way I would have ever tooled up and produced them.

One last thing, If it was me I would consider lighting up your sidecar like a Christmas tree. In today's world you want to be seen out on the road. Other than that, job well done, and may you have many a happy highway mile. You only go this way once, so live it to the fullest.
Johnny Sweet

Mmmmmm! That's nice!

Me, my wife and our dog ))

Extraordinary job Roman, everyone can see by the pictures that your a lucky and beautiful family. Live the dream my good man because life is fleeting, and while your at it never forgetting that our lives are an event.
Your new friend, Johnny Sweet

Well, look what's for sale on ebay today :

Item No.: 130761804130

1995 KAWASAKI KZ 1000 POLICE WITH SL-440 JOHNNY SWEET SIDECAR

See more here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/KAWASAKI-KZ-1000-POLICE-JOHNNY-SWEET-SIDECAR-/130761804130?pt=US_motorcycles&hash=item1e7202c962

Jim Meehan and his sidecar, a sad story

I remember when I built this Sweet SL-220 sidecar for Jim Meenan, it was in 1976 and at the time he was living in Kingston New Hampshire and was 48 years old. Jim had his ride for thirty four years and then some low life two years ago stole it. Today Jim's 84 and his ride has been gone for two years. It's been reported that Jim today lives in Harrington Maine. If anyone knows Jim Meehan or anything about if Jim got his rig back I would appreciate hearing about it. I was told that Jim would give shut in's rides in his sidecar. What a sad state of affairs we live in when no ones ride is safe from the "Low Life's".

Back in 1972 when I built my first SL-110 sidecar I had moved to a larger shop and the first night someone broke in and stole my bike and sidecar. All I could do was build another, and move on with my life. A few weeks later the cops show up and told me that they found a bike and sidecar in the wood a few miles away. The officer told me that they had the local tow truck company haul it in and all I had to do was sign the paper work and I could go and pick it up. When I went to pick up my property it was all scratched up and the bike looked like someone had worked it over with a hammer. I asked the driver what happened and he told me that it was difacult to get up on the ramp truck so it got a little beat up. " So what your insurance will pay for it". I also had to pay for a weeks storage. It came to more than a small amount. I took the rig back to the old shop and moved out of the new shop and got on with my life. I did see the driver out a few months later and took him out around the back side pizza shop and showed him a few things. Street justice can be a bitch.

If anyone know anything about Jim please drop me a line.

Johnny Sweet

Johnny, 

 It does track straight.  We have not had to make any changes to the attachments except tighten them down.  they were loose when we picked up the rig.

The addition of the fairing made the headshake so much that my wife couldn't drive it at first this summer and was something that we didn't see last riding season.

To deal with the head shake we found that addtional weight in the sidecar makes a difference  She now rides with 100lb of lead shot in the trunk, we also tightened down steering head bearings on the bike that that made it much more drivable for my wife.

I also remember the story about his sidecar being stolen. Too bad that it has not been found yet. My heart goes out to him.

Thanks

Eric

That's interesting in that the addition of the fairing made it shimmy. You could add a VW steering shimmy damper. I used them on any of the set ups that gave me the least bit of trouble. I didn't want any customers coming back a few weeks later complaining about a shimmy. My feeling was to corrects a situation before it became a problem. I would purchase the VW shimmy dampers from any of the auto parts stores. The units that we used were from the 1960's VW. I'm not sure if they used the same damper in the 70's. I fabricated a bracket that attached to the right down tube and ran the VW shimmy damper over to the top front solid rod even with the attaching point on the down tube. I will see if I have any pictures of the combination that will show what it looked like.
I'm glad to hear that you placed the added weight to the back of the sidecar in the trunk area. I always had to make sure that every customer was aware of the problems if they placed the weight in the front of the sidecar. I would explain to them about weight and balance and moving what's called the "Moment", It's an airplane term. We only placed 40 lbs in the back, but if you feel comfortable with 100lbs then go with it.
One thing you may want to consider is placing tape, "yes tape" on the speedometer. In airplanes and some race cars back in the day they would place colored tape on the instruments. It was a small band around one eight of an inch wide. It was placed on the glass with green in the operating range and red in the "Danger Zone". All a pilot or a race driver has to do is look to see that all the instruments are in the green. If the needle is in the "Red" your in trouble. I did the same with some of the sidecar rigs, by placing a thin band of green tape below 38 MPH and a "Red line" above 38MPH. All the driver had to do when approaching a right hand turn when they were riding solo was to look down and see if they were in the " green", if they were in the " Red " it was time to pull the front brakes to slow down. We found that with a 40llb's of ballast below 38 MPH they were safe. More about stopping with the " Front Brake at a later time. I have pictures of the tape set up that I can post for any that may be interested.
Thanks for posting the information about the sidecar tracking straight after over thirty years warms my hart. I've always wondered about things like that.
Later, Johnny Sweet

Wolfhound - 9/4/2012 6:54 AM

You are a good man, Johnny Sweet. God Bless you for helping a veteran.

Thanks for the kind words, Larry is a great guy and I'm privileged to have him as a friend. But you know working with Vet's started over two decades before I ever met Larry. It all started with a gentleman named Dominic, Dom that brought an FLH Harley to me for a sidecar. Dom was a former Air Force vet. He was paralyzed from the waist down and was forced into a wheelchair when a Massachusetts State cop ran into him while chasing someone for a minor infraction. The thing that really got Dom was that the cop never even asked or cared how he was doing after he destroyed his life. I built an SL-220  sidecar for Dom and he did the conversion for the hand shifter. He would lift the wheelchair into the sidecar like it was a feather. Dom like us pushed iron three times a week, and kept in good shape, other than his handicap he was like any of us.  While driving his sidecar rig he would use his right hand to shift the gears. He left the return spring off the cable going to the carburetor just like they did in the old day's and when shifting gears the throttle would stay at whatever RMP it was at when he pulled his hand of the twist grip. It was something to see how he drove that rig. Dom was still driving his Harley back in the late 80's when I moved. He herd I was moving and came by to say his good by's.

  Not long after Dom's rig was built came Dicky, he was an old Navy vet  that drove under a trailer truck with no lights late at night returning home from work. Dicky had been handicapped for nineteen years when I installed an SL-220 on a Honda 750 Hondamatic . Dicky used sticks to walk, and in time when he was a fixture at the shop he brought down a wheelchair and when at the shop that's were you would find Dicky. He went to the races and traveled with us all over the country becoming a close friend.  He to was at my going away ceremony and was still driving his sidecar rig.

   The last  in that time period was uncle Frank. Not my real real uncle but when I was just four or five Uncle Frank was one of my Dad's best friends. He and my Dad and my Dads brothers, my real uncles raced flat track motorcycles. They raced on the New England Indian Motorcycle Racing team back in the 1930's in the middle of the depression. When World war II broke out my Dad and his twin brothers left that Sunday night along with Frank for Merchant Marine training. They were in the thick of it by April of 1942 transporting goods to England over the North Atlantic. Over the next three years they got blown out of the water two times and spent day's in life boats all making it home to sail again. By the time the German U Boats were all destroyed they had sunk 1,200 ships and 37,000 Merchant sailors had been lost. My Dad and his group made it to D Day. After the five  Sullivan brothers had been lost they split up my Dad and his brothers, but kept the twins together. Frank and my Dad along with the other brothers were all in the Normandy Invasion. They asked for volunteers to drive the landing craft and my uncle Willy, one of the twins and Frank volunteered to be landing craft drivers. The two of them didn't know that until the war was over, because they were on different ships. Day's after the D Day invasion the Merchant ships headed back to the US for more trips back and forth to England until the war ended. Without the Merchant ships the war could have never been won.

  A little note of interest, on the trip back to Boston on the merchant ships my Dad and Uncle Sandy on different ships landed within hours of each other and headed home, less than 30 miles from the docks for a few days. Two brothers were married to two sisters and when they headed back to England making many trips over the next nine months two baby's were born. My cousin and I, we were what's called twin cousins, we lost my cousin Bob, Robert  Sweet when we were 42. He was doing what we all loved, Skydiving. Sandy, his Dad said at Bob's funeral we new one day it would cost us someone in the family when we purchased the Skydiving Center/School in 1958. In all our family taught ten thousand people how to parachute Jump before Sandy the last of his generation died on his 84'th birthday. 

   Frank, my Dad, and and his brothers returned home at the end of 1945 and in the Summer of 1946 were back racing for the Indian factory team in New England with new flat track racers. They made a living doing construction work. Frank and my Dad both had road bikes. They made connections during the war when England was all but destroyed from the German U2 bombs.  The ships had more food than the guys could ever eat and both my Dad and Frank would take a duffel bag and fill them with non perishable food. They fed two different family's during the war with those in charge never knowing. As it turned out one of the family members was in charge at the old Triumph motorcycle factory. During the Winter of 1945/46 my Dad made a trip on the Merchant ship back to England. Ships were running back and forth shipping supply's in the rebuilding of Europe. My Dad made arrangements to pick up new 1946 Triumph 500 motorcycles for he and Frank when the factory was up and running again. In the late Spring another trip was made and on the return run two brand new 500 were in the hole all crated up. It was reported that they were the first Triumphs to be shipped into the country. This was before the dealer network was set up, that came later.

 I remember Uncle Frank when I was four or five years old, always being around. He was part of our family, but then he was gone. I never thought much about it for almost thirty years, and then he came back into our lives.  As the story goes I was  years later and Frank was driving his road bike, at that time in the early 1950's was a big Indian Chief and went off the road. He was banged up pretty badly and would never be able to work again. My Mom told me that he was married to a stunningly beautiful lady and when Frank got hurt she left him.  She also mentioned that after the war all the girls liked Frank. The entire group would go roller skating, a very popular thing at that time and Frank could have his pick of any of the girls.

   Time past and my Dad and Frank lost track of each other, not intentional ,but you know how life can be. It was in 1978 and my Dad walked into a Sub Shop in the town that I was born in and Frank was making subs. He owned the shop and had come a long way from the dark day;s of the early 50's. Over the years Frank made it out of the wheelchair and to a cane.  My Dad brought Frank home to meet my Mom after over twenty five years, and in a conversation my Dad mentioned that I manufactured motorcycle sidecars. A few days later I got a call and was invited to dinner and told that an old family friend would be showing up. Uncle Frank and I were reunited, and as adults hit it off from the start.  

   I felt it was an honor and a privilege to build Frank his sidecar. He went with the SL-220 and had me paint it white with florescent orange trim so that he would be seen. He also installed a blinking headlight so that he would definitely be seen with on coming tragic. Frank wasn't interested in how flashy the rig looked he just wanted to be seen and not run into. Frank became a permanent part of the shop and after retirement spent more time with us than at home. Between Dom, Dicky and Frank we had one great time, with my guys becoming good friends with all of them. I would observe as one of my guys was about to go somewhere and ask if any of them would like to come along. Many times the entire gaggle, ( many times they were disorderly and noisy)  of sidecar rigs would make it down the road headed somewhere having a good time.

At the time my Dad was still a Merchant seaman, a Captain making the run to Japan and the Philippines many times in a year. He had three months vacation that he took in the Summer. Frank and my Dad would go
out on the road making  trips all over New England on their sidecar rigs. Many time visiting places that were at one time an old race track that they had competed on.  When my Dad retired he and Frank took the motor home pulling a trailer with two sidecar rigs to Florida for bike week. It was the  last time the two of them could make a trip together, we lost my Dad three months later. Frank and Sandy were at my side at the funeral.  

   Frank lived to be 94 and when he died I received a call from my Mom informing me of his passing. I kept in touch with Frank up till the end. In the 1990's I would make the trip back home and stop by to see Frank. He was still driving his SL-220 sidecar into his late 80's and had picked up a few Honda 750 bikes for parts. In Franks mind he was going to be riding for many more years. Those WWII Veterans were tough as nails and I was lucky enough to be raised and guided by them, an opportunity I will always cherish.

   Helping other brother Veterans has been a big part of my life, but when you think about it it's all I have ever known. Before I was a combat vet I was around the WWII vets and was raised on their principals and beliefs. So when it came my time it was just a natural thing. I never held it against someone that never went, but I must admit that my brother vets would always get a little favoritism shown them.

  We had others in the group that weren't sidecar people like Cid'o that lost his arms, Jacky that lost a right leg, and my late uncle Ollie Silva, New England's Hall of Fame race car diver that was disabled in a racing accident in 1978. All were part of our group and all were veterans each  have interesting stories. Possibly at a later date.

An addendum to this short story:
During WWII my uncles Sandy and Willy along with Frank were on their way to England on one of the many trips they made during the war. The Germans blew the ship out of the water and by chance the three along with others found a life boat. At the time the German's would shoot any survivors with their machine gun. For some reason they the Germans were in a "Wolf Pack" and went after other ships and all those on the life raft lives were spared. They were on the open sea for day's and finally seen by a passing Merchant ship that's when the call went out and they were picked up and taken to England. In England with no ship and no ration card they couldn't find any food to eat. They went to the Red Cross just for coffee and some donuts. The cost was $1.00; it doesn't sound like much in today world but back then they only made thirty dollars a month. Putting this into prospective,how would you fell today if a coffee and a few donuts cost you a days pay. They finally found out that they could get the chips from fish and chips without a ration card and that's what they ate until they got a ship back to the New York for many more trips back and forth till the end of the war. Till the day that he died both Willy and Sandy disliked the Red Cross. I remember one time Willy's wife Alga had cloths out for the Red Cross and Willy threw them in the trash before he would give them to the Red Cross. I have no feeling one way or another and some of you may say that the Red Cross does so much. I find it hard to give to a group that pays the CEO over four hundred thousand dollars a year and when money is sent in money when a catastrophe happens and locally they fill their coffers up be sending the money on the where it's needed. If the Salvation Army's CEO only makes something like nineteen thousand a year why can't the Red Cross. This wasn't written to put down the Red Cross it's just part of the story and had to be explained.

I found this link to an interview that both Willy and Sandy gave back in the 1980's when they were running the Stormville Parachute Center and one of the jumpers made some video's. In this one video they are talking about the life boat and getting food in England during the war so many years earlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE57Q1-fsrE

Thanks for reading,

Johnny Sweet 

                                 Frank looking proud and distinguished on his sidecar Rig in 1978.

A history to be proud of, Johnny Swet. God Bless you. My wife put in 21 years in the Army, served in the first Gulf War, my oldest son put in 23 in the Air Force, my middle son put in 4 in the Navy, my youngest
stepson put in 20 in the Navy, and his oldest son is stationed in Afghanistan in the Army at the moment. My wifes dad put in 20 in the Army. So we appreciate our service men.
As an aside, I married quite young, had 5 children, and was never in service, much to my regret.