347 squadron elvington

news item in YORK PRESS

Wartime letters of airman Francis Uzay sent to French archive
9:14am Tuesday 8th February 2011

MORE than 2,000 pieces of correspondence chronicling the love affair and war experiences of a French airman based in the UK have been presented to his homeland by a museum near York.

The archive of letters, diaries, photographs and artefacts is now being translated and studied for a novel and academic publication after being given to the French National Archives by representatives of the Allied Air Forces Memorial, based at Elvington.

Francis Uzay, a writer from a village near Marseille, served as a Free French airman with Bomber Command and the collection stemmed from a single photograph found at the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington. The find led to the memorial charity getting in touch with his wartime love, Barbara Rigby.

Among the items is a telegram – dated January 1945 – informing Barbara that Uzay was missing after being shot down during a bombing mission in his Halifax over France. He actually survived the war, but died in 1996 Now living in Australia she was 19 when she met Francis. Barbara donated the collection to the museum. It has been hailed as possibly the largest of its kind in France.

Agnes Chablat-Beylot, Chief of the Air Force Department at France’s Service Historique de la Defense, said: “We are very grateful to the Allied Air Forces Memorial for this wonderful archive.”

This October, the first French memorial in an English cathedral will be inaugurated at York Minster in commemoration of the only two heavy bomber squadrons from the country to fly during the Second World War. More than 1,600 people are expected to attend, including high-ranking officials from the UK and France.

The Yorkshire Air Museum’s film, Flightpaths, has also been short-listed for the 10th Imperial War Museum Film Festival Awards and the winner will be announced today at a ceremony in London.

an interesting item but using Chorley’s 1945 Losses i can only trace a possible Halifax loss as MZ984 (347 Sq) which lists ‘Sgt E Usai FFAF’ as an injured air gunner during operations to Ludwigshafen 2-3 Jan 1945 . is this the ‘F Uzay’ of the article ?

anyone out there know any different ?