Airmens RAF Flight Log books Question – Can you Help?

raf log books

Davenport 82,

Have we answered your queries fully enough? Hopefully the pointers given will assist towards piecing your Grandfathers career together. Is there any further help or information you are looking for that this Forum may help you with?

Regards

Bob

All thanks for your assistance I can now start to dig a little further.

Kind regards.

Ian

Davenport 82,

Have we answered your queries fully enough? Hopefully the pointers given will assist towards piecing your Grandfathers career together. Is there any further help or information you are looking for that this Forum may help you with?

Regards

Bob

All of you. Wonderful, painstaking detective work. Touching, to an extreme !

Hi, Ian,

Your grandfather’s 2nd pilot when shot down, F/O C.M. Hall (RAAF), is 402002 F/Lt (final rank, I presume) Clive Mayor Hall. The National Archives of Australia holds his A705 casualty file, which will have some further details. Nobody has requested a scan of this file, so it is not viewable on-line yet. However, for a reasonable fee you can request that the file be scanned. Or you can request paper photocopies of the file to be mailed to you. By requesting the scan, however, you will save money, and the added bonus for us is that anyone can view it for free from the moment NAA puts it on-line.

Another file, unknown to me, lists his date of capture as 9 September 1941.

To see these file listings for yourself, go here: http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/search/index.aspx. Enter 402002 in the “Explore:” window and hit “Go”. The results will display. Select the appropriate item (add a checkmark in the available box), and on the resulting page note the “Request Copy” at top right.

Below are Casualty File details.

Regards,

Matt
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Item details for: A705, 166/17/847

Title
HALL, Clive Mayor – (Flight Lieutenant); Service Number – 402002; File type – Casualty – Repatriation; Place – Germany; Date – 7 September 1941

Series number
A705

Control symbol
166/17/847

Item barcode
1069973

Location
Canberra

Access status
Open

Physical format
PAPER FILES AND DOCUMENTS (allocated at series level)

Alternative series and control symbol
AT2010/4, 166/17/847

Further to my Post #4;

From the 7 Squadron Operations Record Book (RAF Form 540/541) your Grandfather completed 12 operational sorties from Oakington. His captain was Flying Officer D.T. Witt DFC DFM who completed 65 sorties by the beginning of September and then posted to Canada in October 1941. The targets included; Brest (Prinz Eugen- heavy cruiser), Huls, Dusseldorf, Borkum, Bremen, Le Trait on Seine (submarine pens), Bethune, Hanover, La Pallice (Battle Cruiser ‘Scharnhorst’) and Duisburg docks.

Your grandfather then joined another seasoned crew only to be shot down by night fighter on his next trip (7/8 Sept 1941), returning from Berlin. The aircraft (Stirling N.6046) crash-landed at Recklinghausen. All the crew survived with the engineer slightly wounded.

The crew on this fateful trip was:

F/Sgt A. Yardley – Captain
F/O C.M. Hall (RAAF) – 2nd Pilot
Sgt D. Owens – Engineer
Sgt J.H Boulton – Navigator
Sgt J.M. Sutton – Wireless Operator
Sgt L.E.J. Davenport – Front Gunner
Sgt A. Speakman – Rear Gunner

According to Ancestry and FindMyPast, your Grandfather (POW No 9553) was interned at Stalag Luft 6, Heydekrug, Lithuania. I believe F/O Hall (an Australian) was incarcerated in Stalag Luft III at Sagon Poland which was primarily for officers. The rest of the crew went to Stalag Luft XXA (Kopernikus 357) also in Poland.

As already said all aircrews were issued with logbooks that had to be filled out. Many were kept by the aircrew but those that did not return would have been stored somewhere and destroyed after the war. The best bet is the squadron ORB’s at Kew. These will list each mission, aircraft used and crew members and the circumstances (if known) of any losses. These are available, for a fee, in digital form, or can be viewed for free at Kew.

Logbook

During the 1960’s hundreds of flying logbooks were destroyed by the MOD, the RAF Museum kept a few – still worth trying them. Also worth a check at the National Archives for his MI9 report on being shot down and internment at a POW camp (this report will give all his details)

Davenport82,

A quick glance at the 7 Sqn F541 (Operations Record Book) I can confirm that Sgt Davenport was a front gunner and my first record (I think) is 7th Jun 41 bombing ‘Prinz Eugen’ in Brest. Also he was posted missing as you said on 7/8 Sep 41 whilst on Ops to Berlin.

Might I also suggest you contact 7 Sqn @ RAF Odiham who used to hold some archives and the 7 Sqn Association whose archivist should be able to help. Note: he should cos I taught him!! Both have websites with contact details.

If you wish just a list of Ops I may well be able to help.

Bob

Ian as an aircrew member your grandfather would have been allocated a Log Book, which he would have used through out his flying career.

The RAF Museum link above would be a good starting point, but as I understand things many Log Books were not kept by the RAF.

First place to ask is here:

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/default/archive-collection/aircrew-logbooks.aspx