Aircrew on 36 and 208 Squadrons 1933 – 1936

Still looking for help on this one. I’ll try and get a couple of the air to airs up tonight, one from a Demon and one from a Horsley and hopefully from the position someone will be able to confirm my expectation that my ‘Bill’ was an Air Gunner. I’ll also put up a couple of group photo’s, one from 208 in the desert and one of 36 in Singapore.

If I could just get a little bit more background information there could be an article on what appears to have been interesting career.

Regards,

kev35

Kev,

Alas no info on my father’s pilot in 36 Sqdn.
The Hawker Horsley’s had to execute a slight dive at the point of dropping their torpedos, and as the water was ‘glassy’ they went too low. The first picture in the sequence showed the plane, with a line drawn through the torpedo to check the angle of drop. The next showed them ‘water skiing’ and the last was the 2 guys swimming to the boat.
The Horsley’s were replaced with the big Vickers Vildebests towards the end of his time at Seletar I think.

My dad’s father had died when he was a boy so he went to live with his grandfather, who was the gamekeeper at large estate at Melton Constable in Norfolk (The Guiness family I think).
He started work doing estate jobs, like making bricks and then did general agricultural jobs around Norfolk, like ‘steam threshing’. However he realised that there was no real future there, so joined the RAF as an airman in 1930.
The rest of the Taylor family always regarded him with perhaps a touch of awe for having the boldness to do step outside their accepted ‘comfort zone’ and join up in the 30’s.
He always laughed and said it was the advertisement that promised ‘Good food, well served in spacious dining halls’ that did it! That has been a family joke phrase ever since.
Overseas postings in the RAF were 4 years in each of two locations I think, hence 4 Singapore and then 4 in Egypt. A longtime to be away.
He told me that during the years in Singapore …he only ever saw ‘one white woman’, a planter’s wife, going upstream…as he was going downstream!

You got a few shillings extra if you learned ‘a language’ in the Forces at that time, so when we returned to Singapore as an RAF family 30 years later, he could still talk quite a lot of Malay. Enough to chat to the Malay Police Auxiliaries at Changi I remember.
David T

Postfade.

Do you know the name of your Father’s pilot? I have a group photo from Singapore which may be of interest to you. PM me your email address and I will scan it and send you a copy.

It seems I am tantalisingly close to finding out who my Bill is. One day I’ll get to the NA and look for the man who appears in the ORB of both 36 and 208 Squadrons.

Regards,

kev35

Paul that’s absolutely brilliant. It means the letter I have from him to his Mother, just dated the 8th, must have been January 8th 1933.

Regards,

kev35

She left UK for Far East left Southampton Jan 3rd 1933, Port Said 14th Jan and left Singapore 4th Feb 1933 for Hong Kong- Don’t know when she arrived Singapore

Small world. Two of the photo’s I have appear to be of that particular incident. It seems my Bill sailed out on the Neralia (not researched it yet)

Prob Neuralia

http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/Troopships.html

“He was flying Hawker Horsley torpedo bombers and had some superb photos, including a set of his aircraft dropping too low during a practice torpedo run and the pilot and my dad ending up swimming back to the camera boat with the Horsley’s tail still visible ‘in the drink’ behind them! The photos, including great ones of the MacRobertson air race passing through Singapore, all went to the RAF Museum. They are probably sitting, uncatalogued, in the achives at Hendon.”

Kev.. Sounds like the incident for picture of Horsley S1445 you have…….

Small world. Two of the photo’s I have appear to be of that particular incident. It seems my Bill sailed out on the Neralia (not researched it yet) A lot of the images I have are air to airs of Horsley’s and Demons and a number of passenger aircraft encountered during his travels. Even a Westland Wessex of the Egyptian Air Force. There are several air to ground images of prominent places such as the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

I doubt I’ll ever find out who they actually belonged to but it’s an interesting trail.

Regards,

kev35

My father almost ‘fits the bill’, but not quite! He was Bill (William) Taylor (RAF no 511675) and was a radio op/gunner on 36 sqdn at RAF Seletar, Singapore from 1933 to ’36. Like many ‘Taylor’s’ he was also knicknamed ‘Buck’.

He was flying Hawker Horsley torpedo bombers and had some superb photos, including a set of his aircraft dropping too low during a practice torpedo run and the pilot and my dad ending up swimming back to the camera boat with the Horsley’s tail still visible ‘in the drink’ behind them! The photos, including great ones of the MacRobertson air race passing through Singapore, all went to the RAF Museum. They are probably sitting, uncatalogued, in the achives at Hendon.

however dad went to Ismalia, Eqypt in 1936 and was then no longer flying. He joined 77 Sqdn on Whitley’s at Driffield in 1939, proudly displaying his ‘Observer’s ‘ brevet…before being shot down dropping leaflets (no bombs on board) over Hamburg in early 1940. The long war was then spent as a ‘kreigy’!

David Taylor