Flt Lt K.G. Hodson

Hi Jules,

your Flt Lt Kenneth George Hodson was my Father! Sadly he died last October 2011 aged 92. His final rank was Sqn Ldr, when he retired in 1974 aged 55 years.

Dad joined the VR in 1939, and flew Blenheims initially.

The tunic you have may well have had the “O” badge, as at the start of the war he was an Observer, although later when this was split between Navigator and Bomb Aimer, he became a Navigator. Up until his death, he believed he was the last surviving WWII Observer.

He was awarded the O.B.E in 1960, after administrating the take over of RAF Sealand from the Americans.

Since 2000, with much encouragement from me, he wrote his life story (5 books). Book 2 – “The War Years” is a fascinating account of what it was like to be on bombers during the war. It is also a great reference for me, as there is no way I could remember all that he had told me over the years.

I still have some of his uniforms, mainly mess kit, but with the fabled “Flying ********” badge (excuse my French, but that is what the Observer wing was known as!). I have his George VI commission certificates, and his Elizabeth II O.B.E. certificate. Plus all his medals and log books.

My main gripes about the LG are that (a) their hardware seems quite temperamental (don’t cuss too loud or it will hear you!), and (b) I never seem to get exactly the same search list – for exactly the same input criteria – from one day to the next!
But apart from that (!!!) it is a useful tool. Life for us researchers would be considerably more difficult without it!
Resmoroh

Hi Jules,
Yes, General Duties is aircrew. No awards were made to your two airmen, so a squadron cannot be ascertained.

Adrian; You asked for search tips on the London Gazette. I got fed up with searching for RAFVR Officer’s service numbers, because it only found Army officers with similar numbers. Also, it would not find anything when searching a surname, with initials.
I then spent a couple of months using various search criteria, such as Royal Air Force; Volunteer Reserve; Air Ministry; Distinguished Flying Cross and Distinguished Flying Medal, etc. All those relevant results were then saved as PDFs to Documents. I have covered the period from 1937 to 1948 and searching is much improved. Mind you, it takes up 929 Mb, but it is worth it.
I never go to the LG website nowadays.
PS, Don’t tell anybody, because someone is bound to complain.
Doug.

The London Gazette – hence the expression “gazetted” – is online here:

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/

Perhaps Doug will give some search tips – I know the WW1 medal searches could be fairly awkward, and required some inventive thought sometimes, but I’ve never looked for WW2 information – the OCR might handle those better.

Adrian

Thanks Doug

Thats quick work !

Is that info available on the net then ?

‘General Duties’ I take it that still means that he could be aircrew ?

I doubt I will be able to identifiy which squadron or position other than from personel records which are still restricted ?

Jules

Hi Jules,
The following from the London Gazette;
Kenneth George HODSON, 168456, RAFVR. Commissioned as P/O (General Duties Branch), 11/5/45, from LAC, 1818430. To F/O, 11/11/45. Appointed as Assistant to Provost Marshall 1/10/46, as F/Lt, until 15/8/47.

Francis David RAWCLIFFE, 141387, RAFVR. Commissioned as Act P/O (Technical Branch) 25/3/43, from AC2, 1735551. To P/O, 10/11/43 and F/O, 10/5/44.
Regards, Doug.