Dave

Thanks, I am going to try the 77 Association again as I mentioned before. I am a Member of several other related Associations and Societies and am also in the process of following up some other leads, but its quite time consuming. Quite often you get an acknowledgement or thats interesting reply and that’s the last one hears from them. So some repeat letters may be in order.

Regarding Photographs, they did not have any official photographs on my grandfathers Personnel File, apparently the Personnel Archives retained only essential information as to keeping a historical record, mainly of the Units he served at, next of kin details, childs name, how much pension was paid for my grandmother, her son (dependent child) and that she received a War Gratuity. That my grandfather was ‘M.B.K’. (Missing Believed Killed) with confirmation of the ‘Killed in Action’ date (being the same as M.B.K.). The Personnel files of this era have apparently been slashed to just two sides of a very large pink card – very, very disappointing for the £25.00 I forked out.

There are a collection of photographs at the RAF Museum and the Imperial War Museum. To be honest I’m not sure whether it is that easy to trace an individual as there is several million, but they may have some indexed by Squadron (I shall have to inquire). Private news companies, Hulton Getty and Keele University, some are on loan from Keele I believe, to the German Government to trace potential undisturbed WW2 unexploded bomb sites.

Frequently local German infrastructure is brought to a standstill, when a WW2 bomb is discovered in a Marshalling Yard, near a main railway or town etc.

Despite Germany being our friends now, they are still being disrupted by the work of Bomber Command about 60 years ago! So they are attempting to locate the bomb sites apparently from Aerial Bomber Command photographs in some places, before they discover them by accident or on construction sites.

Thanks for your ideas

Mark

Hello Dave and Ian

Thanks for your responses.

It would be worth trying current Davies in the area.

Regarding CWGC for Harold Davies, I have done the same search on the Debt of Honour Register and come up with Bridgtown, Cannock.

I have already searched the Staffs County Street Directory (which covers all of Staffs including Bridgtown and Cannock for his father. I found a match and checked the Electoral Register for that address but his mothers details did not match up with the women listed at that address, so they could not have lived at Bridgtown when he died. There is no Obituary in any of the papers either (Local or County).

However, there is a Sgt H. Davies on the War Memorial at Stafford outside the Courthouse (but it could be another H. Davies). I have tried the Council, but nobody seemed to know whether there was an Inventory for the War Memorial. I have also had a request published in 3 West Midlands Newspapers, but nothing turned up.

I have looked at every name in every street in the 1940 Bridgtown Street Directory and conclude that the family did not live in Bridgtown, (or possibly even Staffs) at the time of his death.

Apparently, the CWGC sent out a questionaire, I believe after the War (1950’s) to the last known next of kin address to check details. Not everyone replied, most likely because they had moved house since the death, or were too distressed to respond.

Therefore it could be possible in the case of Harold Davies that at the time of the CWGC questionaire, the resident living at the ex home of Sgt Davies’s parents, forwarded the correspondence onto his parents. Therefore the place given on the CWGC Register might be the later address of his parents or next of kin when the CWGC conducted the survey. Nothing shows up in the 1940 Bridgtown/Cannock local press, street indexes, or Electoral Register.

One final point regarding the crash near EASTLEIGH, Hants is that a balloon did finally bring the aircraft down AFTER the aircraft had already lost height. But I have discovered that the circumstances before the crash are not what they seem, despite the crew being blamed for their own loss and that of the Whitley because of being off track. They ought to be cleared in light of what I have found.

Thanks

Mark

Crown Copyright Public Record Office AIR 27 and AIR 28

Thanks Ian and Papa Lima

That book by Watson Watt sounds interesting, at this rate I shall have to build an extension to house the growing book collection, its such a fascinating subject I would like to know more about.

I agree Ian, R.V. Jones book is more on the side of discovering what the Germans were up to!

Mark

Thanks Snapper

Hope you are okay

Mark

Ian

Pilots Log Books and other Logs went into storage once completed or when the person was released from RAF Service, after the War was over. Then a newspaper advertisement was placed in the National Press about 1960 apparently and you could claim your own personal Log Book.

Some were claimed by RAF Personnel and next of kin, but a lot were scrapped, before the RAF Museum at Hendon came into being. However, the Public Record Office did retain a few as a representative cross section of the various Units etc.

Glynn Ashfield’s was retained and it is interesting as he was one of those involved in a lot of the early interception work, trials, tests and calibration of the early A.I. sets, equipment and R.D.F., with G. Ashfield being repeatedly mentioned in the F.I.U. O.R.B. Form 540 (Tangmere).

An interesting book is ‘Most Secret War’ written by the War-time British Intelligence Radio Scientist R.V. Jones (originally copyrighted 1978) which was reprinted by Wordsworth Editions Ltd in 1998 and still available several months ago when I got a new paperback one. It has 556 pages, dealing mainly with Scientific Radio Intelligence, countermeasures, radio navigation, navigational beams and Radar development. Right up your street I would of thought, some of it is out of my league.

Also No 80 (Signals) Wing by Laurie Brettingham which I expect you have got, about the Radio Countermeasures (R.C.M.) bending the German Navigational Beams. By the way, their Operational Record Book Form 540 still exists and was known as the Blind Approach Training and Development Unit (B.A.T. & D.U.), based at Boscombe Down in August 1940. Their aircraft could fly apparently without having to notify Controllers of their flight movements and they were searching the skies for the German Navigational Beams, like X-Gerat. But you will know all that I expect.

Several years back I acquired a photocopy of a (Telecommunications Research Establishment) T.R.E. scientific Report into a crashed German Heinkel in January 1941 near Eastleigh which they think was equipped to fly by beam, (crashed only a few fields away from the field where my Grandfathers Whitley crashed). Despite the Heinkel being badly destroyed, the wireless Operator had managed to get out, unfortunately too late for him, but his notebook survived and its in this T.R.E. Report that he had been beam flying previously and was likely flying by beam on this fateful Op.

I got the books for reference only and I have not studied them deeply. My interest began in this when I began investigating our bomber aircraft signalling procedures when they returned from Ops abroad and approached the British Coast.

Regards

Mark

F.I.U. Tangmere

Ian

As promised

Crown Copyright National Archives AIR 29/27

Allan
Re Waggling your wings in your reply.

In Air Publication A.P. 1795 (February 1940) ‘SIGNAL BOOK for use in Air Navigation’ Chapter IV, ‘Visual Signals To Be Made by Aircraft (Coding).

‘Section III. – Signals made by an aircraft in flight in reply to signals made by an aircraft which has been forced to land’

It says:

“(These signals, which are not prescribed by the Air Convention of 1919, are given here by way of example.)”

“2. That it does not understand the signal, by rocking from side to side.”

Obviously a rocking movement, or waggling of the wings could be used for signalling, in the Signal Book example (which was given as an example) it applied to signalling to the ground.

Unfortunately, I only have about a quarter of the Signal Book photocopied, so it may have applied in other signalling areas too, as your book seems to suggest.

If he didn’t understand, I expect he would be challenged or signalled to again for his ‘colour of day’.

I have a copy memo of 1941 regarding 2 friendly aircraft being shot down together by our fighters in Scotland and the memo said that the Challenge and Reply procedure was flawed, because if the aircraft failed to reply, it would likely be shot down.

In 1940 the bomber aircraft being challenged would fire its ‘colour of day’ (usually a 2 colour cartridge from a Verey pistol), or if near a UK Defended/Prohibited Area, the ‘letter of the period’.

Regarding Navigation Lights, according to an August 1940 Court of Inquiry bomber aircraft could only show their navigation lights at less than 2,000 feet over the land. (Navigation Lights were extinguished when over the sea areas). Apparently, the Battle on this occasion was showing his navigation lights above 2,000 feet and more than 5 miles from his aerodrome, so they were shot down and 3 killed only a few minutes into their sortie, despite firing their colour of day. Apparently the intercepting Pilot and Controller say they did not know the existance of the Operational Bomber Station and that aircraft were on Ops from it that night.

Another August 1940 C of I regarding an aircraft KNOWN to be a Whitley (from 10 OTU) was shot down on 5th August 1940 by Fighters from Silloth, but managed a forced landing at Squires Gate Aerodrome.

A Memo in a file at the National Archives, Kew indicated that our Bomber Pilots feared our own A.A. and defensive fire more than German A.A.

Interesting observation from your Book, Allan.
Thanks
Mark