Tail-heavy Albermarles

If anybody is still reading this thread….

I can recommend the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) as another place to obtain research data. They have a search engine on their website based around what it says on the tin.

They have won a number of awards, for their charity work, since opening in 2018 and are based on Canwick Hill overlooking the very fine Roman city of Lincoln.

H

Agree fully on the ‘caution’ approach. I’ve visited Kew many, many times researching WW1, WW2 and Cold War subjects. I often get side-tracked onto totally unrelated things because when you order a box of documents it often contains material that’s unrelated to your search. I always think I’ve finished looking but then need another trip because I’ve found something else. Plus it is pretty incredible when you find that you’re handling a document signed by Churchill, or Dowding or Beamont.

My approach with these things is usually to look at Kew for the ORB etc (I’ve also done a lot of personnel research there pertaining to WW1), then see what that says. Next take a trip to the RAF Museum and see what the aircraft record cards say; I have also done a lot of flying log book research at Hendon: they have an amazing collection. Then that usually ties it all in – official record/aircraft/people. Hendon’s cataloguing system is incredible: if you get the staff to search for “Hampstead Norris” you will likely find they can locate photographs too, as well as personal items related to the airfield. And the staff are extremely knowledgeable and helpful. They too are OK with you taking photos. Back in the day (pre-digital) I’d be scribbling away for hours, just making notes as much as I could: technology has made a world of difference there.

I have to say I don’t know much about O&RTU – the parts I have were merely background info for a crash I was researching in Wiltshire. Luckily I keep copies of everything I photograph at Kew (thank goodness for digital cameras), so sometimes I can help others with a bit of primary-source data. Sadly on this occasion I’m missing the bits that would tell the full story, but hopefully others will be able to start where I finished.

Thanks, I’m surprised that the Microsoft search engine didn’t find your document. I didn’t check National Archives directly – I was not to know that, that would have provided a “positive result”. Quite frankly I didn’t understand the status / baseline of your document. Perhaps an explanation at the start would have helped. We don’t all know everything!

Kew is on my list of places to visit when I can find the time. As is the National Aerospace Library at Farnborough where I have a few archived documents, written on this very keyboard.

All that said no other reliable source I checked complemented the content of Air 29/587. Plus some of the F540s I spoke about came from Kew, via a third party.

Kew, will accept documents for archive that indicate a historic value. They have no way of knowing the correctness or completeness of same. I always treat with caution, by cross checking, as well as an injection of the grey matter – no matter the source.

H

See, this forum can be a gem of a place at times. well done you lot. great to see threads like this.

AIR 29/587 is a primary-source document from the National Archives; it’s the O&RTU ORB. Hence, it was written contemporaneously with the unit’s day-to-day activity, by a member of the unit. 

Information posted on books and websites should always be taken with caution, but for many nowadays it counts as “research”. It’s not.

Take a trip to Kew: it’s a treasure trove of primary-source documents which often contradict what you’ll read when you Google something.

Sabrejet,

I don’t know what your quoted document Air 29/587 is. I can’t find it anywhere. It seems to have led you in a certain direction ie ORTU being at RAF Thruxton. Have you used any other document(s) to back its evidence up?

I have used a number of sources (books and websites) to look for your document and evidence that the unit was at RAF Thruxton ALL TO NO AVAIL.

What you see in my previous posts is my thought processes being presented in script. That is how I work. You can see my answer and how I got there. In other words my workings out.

In Dec 1943, the early D-Day plans would have been a very closely guarded secret. Only for very senior people to know about. Juniors wouldn’t have been afforded that knowledge. Hence my use of the term “that is a fact”.  You could also say why would you / they move a unit to another location in the middle of tight program of events – if they did move of course. Such an action could be seen as bad management. 

As a side issue but never the less, an example, I have spent the last weekend going throu’ 1500x F540s relevant to the Battle Of Britain. The amount of obvious errors is frightening. I have had to use the grey matter to sift through the clutter or chaff to obtain the true picture. However, I accept these documents were created in the “thick of war”. Just as your document Air 29/587 presented data or report possibly was. 

At the end of the day my narrative is based on what I find when I go looking. Everything needs to be X-checked to ensure the true picture is emerging. Rather than just relying on one single source.

H

No-one claimed that O&RTU at Thruxton were supporting D-Day but that is misleading; GPRs were training for ‘something’, whether it was D-Day or not.

It seems that O&RTU’s presence at Thruxton will be dismissed since it doesn’t agree with the narrative. I’ll leave it to someone else to ‘discover’ that part in the future.

Could it be the unit moved from Thruxton to Hampstead Norris for a role change during Mar / Apr 1944. The word “formed” to me means fully established so hence the slip of a month or so (to move) is not unreasonable. Although, I don’t have any evidence, here, to support their being at Thruxton in the first place.

Any activity at Thruxton, in Dec 1943, would certainly not have been in support of D-Day – that is a fact!! Best capable team to do the job / role, at such short notice, and Hampstead Norris the best place to do the training I guess.

The surprise to me is 27 Sqn – but that is a personal thing.

I’ve double checked; I only have a few pages from AIR 29/587 but Operational & Refresher Training Unit was in existence at Thruxton as early as December 1943. CO at that time was Sqn Ldr P Taplin.

I am missing intervening sheets but the unit is present at Hampstead Norris on 1 March 1944, so the “1 April 1944 forming at Hampstead Norris” is in error.

FYI the correct spelling is “Albemarle” – only one ‘r’.

I’ll have to double-check the Thruxton link to O&RTU: it seems to have pre-dated the 1 April 1944 date.

The Albermarles are from the Operational Refresher Training Unit (ORTU). Involved in pre-D-Day training. About 20 of the aircraft type were on strength at the time. As somebody has already said the unit was formed 1 Apr 1944 – which makes the task a bit of a rush job. It was never given a “unit number plate”. The correct title for the station, back in the day, was RAF Hampstead Norris.

The ORTU is still around today – its called 27 Sqn (Chinooks) – small World!! It “arrived” there via 240 OCU. 

Pre 1944, the stations role was operating Wellington’s in the European theatre and preparing same for ferry to the Mid-East.

H

There is a very useful timeline in that link: it shows a 1 April 1944 formation of 1 O&RTU though I’d suggest that should be ‘moved from Thruxton’.

I’m sure there must be markings experts out there who could pin down a unit for those Albemarles either way.

The same photograph also appears in the West Berks Countryside Society site on “World War 2 at Haw Farm”, page 4, labelled “glider towers awaiting disposal”.

https://www.westberkscountryside.org.uk/media/other/39803/4.HawFarmairf…

Laurence

That was my thought too! 

The 1943 date on the picture caption can’t be right. 

Thanks,  Sabrejet, that makes sense. I was aware it had training history but not with gliders. Funnily enough there were two Tigers there until quite recently, the latest date I have is 2014.

These look like scrappers to me, rather than ‘stored’. And yes, engineless.

I’m not sure of Hampstead Norris’ WW2 history but I’m aware of the place since I used to drive past on my daily commute to/from Benson.

I also did a small bit of research into it in relation to a crash elsewhere; though not mentioned in the ever-dodgy Wiki entry, the airfield was home to the ambiguously-titled “Operational & Refresher Training Unit”, which moved in from Thruxton circa February 1944. This unit was glider-related and later had Albemarles, which may be those seen in your photo, presumably awaiting the cutting torch in post-war years.

For info, a February 1944 return for O&RTU showed this:

Horsa I – LF941

Hotspur II – BT576, BT667, BT671, BT739, BT775, BT780, BT920, HH372, HH705, HH791, HH838

Whitley V – LA790, LA872; Whitley ‘293/P’ is also mentioned.

The return also shows Tiger Moth hours being flown though the aircraft is not listed.