Author Archives
RAF Pathfinders Archive
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PFF Losses in First Month, 1942
Amongst the Pathfinders’ early losses was Leslie Barr of 7 Squadron. Other losses in the early days included the Savage crew of 156 Squadron, who were shot down on a Kassel operation on 27/28 August 1942. They are buried at… Read More ›
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80th Anniversary: Early Months of the Path Finder Force
A cautious approach was taken towards the creation of the Path Finder Force in summer 1942, reflecting the controversy about whether it was required at all and whether it would manage to live up to its supporters’ expectations. It was given… Read More ›
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80th Anniversary: Harris’s Attitude to the PFF
Sir Arthur Harris, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Bomber Command, had been strongly opposed to the setting up of a separate elite target-marking force, believing this would leave to rivalry and jealousy within the non-Pathfinder squadrons (known as Main Force) who… Read More ›
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80th Anniversary: Bennett chosen to lead the PFF
Donald Bennett was Harris’s personal choice for the command of the Path Finder Force; he took up his post on 15 July 1942, one month before the PFF officially came into existence. Bennett , right, with one of his top… Read More ›
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80th Anniversary: Harris Opposition to PFF
As part of our 80th Anniversary celebrations, a reminder of just how controversial the creation of the Pathfinders was. When the formation of the Path Finder Force was first being discussed in the first half of 1942, the name used… Read More ›
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Bennett and the Tirpitz
In April 1942, Donald Bennett was shot down attacking the feared German battleship, the Tirpitz, which was holed up in a Norwegian fjord. After many trials and with the assistance of the Norwegian people, he escaped from Occupied Norway to… Read More ›
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80th Anniversary of the Pathfinders
The 80th Anniversary of the formation of the Path Finder Force is fast approaching, and to celebrate we are running a series of features about the Force, its leadership and its history. The PFF was officially formed on 15 August… Read More ›
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The Queen & RAF Remembrance
The Queen’s long association with the Royal Air Force began during the Second World War. Our second post celebrating her 70th Jubilee concerns Runnymede in 1953. The Runnymede Memorial commemorates all members of the Air Forces of Britain, the Dominions… Read More ›
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Princess Elizabeth and the Navigator
As one of our two contributions to the Jubilee celebrations, here is a picture of the Queen when she was still Princess Elizabeth. The RAF navigator who is fourth from her left is Flying Officer Ramesh Chandra Datta, of the… Read More ›
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Met Flight Shooting-Down
On 9 May 1943, a 1409 Squadron Met Flight crew were shot down over Holland. This was a rare occurrence as normally Mosquitos flew too high and too fast to be intercepted. Both crewmembers, Peter Hall and William Woodruff, survived… Read More ›
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Hit by Incendiaries over the Target: the true story of Brock Robertson’s DFC
Brock Robertson won his Distinguished Flying Cross for an operation to Hamburg on 24/25 July 1943, just over a month before his death. What the official citation for the award deliberately omitted to say was that Brock’s aircraft had been… Read More ›
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Brock Robertson & His Crew
Oliver Brock Robertson was an outstanding Canadian pilot who flew with 97 Squadron. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross in unusual circumstances in July 1943, just over a month before his death in action. There is an interesting family background,… Read More ›
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Crisis in Ukraine
The recent terrible events in the Ukraine have raised deeply disturbing echoes of the Second World War. Our Archive works to commemorate the RAF Pathfinders who died or were injured, physically or psychologically, in that bloody conflict. Their sacrifices, and… Read More ›
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H2S and The Pathfinders
H2S was a critical part of the electronics war waged by the Pathfinders. The radar equipment transmitted a directional beam of high-energy impulses outwards and downwards towards the ground. Reflections of its own impulses received from the ground were accepted… Read More ›
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Crash site of Kenneth Brown crew
Following on from the interesting and detailed German eyewitness reports of The Loss of the Robertson Crew, published at the end of January 2022, we have more German eyewitness reports of another 97 Squadron crew, lost in the same month… Read More ›
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635 Squadron – End of War Photograph
Further to our post yesterday about Frederick Jones, a pilot with 635 Squadron, and his earlier time in training (see Frederick Jones, 635 Squadron, & Heaton Park) we have now located the end of war photograph from which his image… Read More ›
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Winston Johnson, navigator, Special Duties
Winston Johnson’s wartime service was as a navigator/specialist wireless operator. He was involved in top-secret work, some of it with 109 Squadron, a founding Mosquito squadron of the Pathfinders. On 31 January 1945, Winston was posted overseas to the BLA,… Read More ›
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Post-War View of Bomber Command
Although the bombing campaign had received very positive publicity during the war, post-war the tide of public opinion began to turn against the campaign. By extension, this would come to mean that the aircrew themselves. Read the Full Article: Post-War… Read More ›
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Frederick Jones, 635 Squadron, & Heaton Park
Jonah Jones, centre, second row up. Thought to be from the end of war photograph for 635 Squadron. Frederick S “Jonah” Jones, a pilot of 635 Squadron, wrote a poem when he was in training in 1942 at Heaton Park…. Read More ›
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The Loss of the Robertson Crew
We have just added some interesting and unusually detailed German eyewitness reports of the loss of the Robertson crew after the Nuremburg raid of 27/28 August 1943. Lancaster JA958K crashed at Bubenreuth, near Erlangen, around 16 miles (25.5 kilometres) north… Read More ›
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“AN AUSTRALIAN PATHFINDER OVER GERMANY”
Today we are adding to the Library an article by Tim Willasey-Wilsey, Visiting Professor of War Studies at King’s College London. It concerns Hall Mettam, a member of the RAAF, whom Tim met in Beirut in 1974 just before the… Read More ›
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HAPPY XMAS and Best Wishes for 2022
Menu card for the Sergeants’ Mess at RAF Station Graveley, on Christmas Day 1944, when Victory was just beginning to look certain. With our our very best wishes to all our readers and supporters THE RAF PATHFINDERS ARCHIVE team From… Read More ›
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Remembrance: 16/17 December 1943, Black Thursday
On Thursday and Friday this week we remember the 50 Pathfinder aircrew who were killed in crashes in England on Thursday and Friday 78 years ago. The crews had just returned safely from that night’s operation to Berlin when a… Read More ›
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Geoff Baker, RAAF, 97 Squadron.
A further addition to the library today … A personal account by Stan Hurd of a friend, Geoff Baker, “an ordinary person who went to war that changed his life. It tells the story of his experiences flying a Lancaster… Read More ›
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Mark Gleed, 139 Squadron
A new article by Len Gleed about Mark Gleed, a Mosquito navigator, and his service with 139 Squadron, is the second article in our collection of articles which have been written by relatives or members of the public. The list… Read More ›
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Remembrance Sunday: Lewis Austin
The total wartime losses for the Path Finder Force were given by their commander, Donald Bennett, as being 3,618 men.[1] It was a large figure for a small Force which only came into existence in the fourth year of the war…. Read More ›
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Remembrance Day, 2021
Remembering all the Pathfinders lost in the war, and those who survived but suffered from terrible memories in after years, and all their friends and families. ONE OF THE MANY PATHFINDER CREWS LOST After three and a half months of… Read More ›
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Remembering Derek
Sometimes it is the smallest items which tell the most. A few old newspaper cuttings, preserved for many years, reveal how greatly Derek Charles Carrott, of the Townsend crew of 405 Squadron, was missed by his family. He was the… Read More ›
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The Moore Crew
The Moore crew were all killed when their aircraft crashed at Gelsenkirchen in June 1943. James Parker McMillin was 97 Squadron’s Navigation Officer, and he had only stepped into the navigator role when the usual crewmember could not fly. Like… Read More ›
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A German Bomber Crew
Dr Olav Heinemann’s article “A Chance Encounter” contains a last section which mentions his grandfather Kurt Heinemann who was a navigator on a Luftwaffe bomber. We very much like the closing paragraph of the article: “While it appeared to me… Read More ›