Snapper,

Thanks for the pm. The answer is no, but Geoff is a good friend of mine! I shall be seeing him Sunday, as it’s my turn for helping to run the (Shoreham Aircraft) Museum. I’m over there every three weeks. It’s a bit knackering really, I finish my nightshift at 2AM, get to bed around 3.30AM, get up at 7AM, reach the museum at 10AM, & get back home at 7PM. Still the guys (& girls) we are remembering at the museum put their lives on the line, so the least I can do is go without a few hours sleep.

Apart from this Sunday, I shall be there on the 14th & 28th September, so if you get the chance why not come over? I could hand the photos of RFG over in person, just let me know so I can take them with me.

Have you seen Geoff’s website? (http://www.aviartnutkins.com)

If anyone reading this is thinking of visiting the museum, just a reminder that the museum closes for the winter on the 28th September. If you want to know about the museum, see our website (http://www.shoreham-aircraft-museum.co.uk) and/or FlyPast September 2003 issue, pp 48/49.

Geoff.

I shall wait with bated breath for news of the logbook, with fingers etc. crossed.

I have photocopies from almost thirty logbooks of the period that the pilot concerned served with 131 (County of Kent) sqdn, and have gone through most of them cross-checking logbook sorties against the same sortie in the ORB. Fortunately I photocopied the entire 131 sqdn ORB, ‘summary’ and ‘sortie list’ a tenner’s worth at a time (God knows how much it cost in total!!) so I can compare them at leisure at home. I also have a large 131 sqdn photo collection, copied from the just over 60 pilots & groundcrew I traced from the squadron, including some very nice rare & unpublished Spitfire Mk VII photos.

Thanks for the extra info on RFG btw.

Geoff.

Forget my last post, just spotted the other thread.

In my experience of research at the PRO, most ORBs have the serial number only, which is okay when you’ve got a logbook with the code letters, as you can tie-up the sorties & get the serial number/code letter for the aircraft that the logbook owner flew. A few ORBs have only the aircraft code letter, which is no help at all, but they were busy with other things in 1940. Then you get the ORBs that only list operational flights…. such as 131 sqdn in 1944. I’ve never come across an ORB with serial number & code letter listed for more than a few weeks at a time, still if it happens to be the right few weeks…

What we need is some 609 sqdn logbooks from the period of the BoB, where the code letters are listed, that can be cross reffed with the 609 sqdn ORB, to establish the code letters carried by each aircraft. Hopefully some of the pilots will have flown the same aircraft as RFG, so that would then give us the code letter of RFG’s aircraft that Mark could then look for in his photos.

Is there not a 609 sqdn experten who might have got some or all the serial/code letter tie-ups for the BoB period already?

Geoff

3

Snapper,

Many thanks for the info & the photo. Here are the two photos of RFG Miller, and another which was on a film that was in Rogers’ camera when it was returned to the family.

By the way, all the BoB books say that Rogers was ‘of Radford Semele’. This is not correct, as the family home was at Alveston Pastures, a farm near Alveston, Stratford-on-Avon. Rogers’ brother John Garland Miller was killed on the 12th August 1940 whilst serving with No 149 Sqdn.

There is an account of the collision between Rogers’ Spitfire & the Me110 in ‘Zerstorer’ by John Vasco & Peter Cornwell (pp 215-217) from the pilot of the Me110 who was the only survivor.

Do you want me to get hard copies made of these three photos, and send them to you, in return for three photos of Rogers or Spitfires that he flew? If so, what size shall I do them, or will e-mail do?

Shouldn’t it be ‘they’ aren’t big etc??

Nosey lot aren’t we?