Above: Temporary grave marker for the Coates crew, killed 25 March 1944, RPA/H97/Coates The total Pathfinder losses, incurred from August 1942 to May 1945, were given by Donald Bennett, their Air Officer Commanding (AOC), as being 3,618 men. As the AOC of the Pathfinders, Bennett was in the best position […]
John Searby (left, with Bennett in 1944, IWM: CH 20628) was one of the best known and most revered of the Pathfinder squadron and station commanders. According to the dates in Bennett’s book Pathfinder, he was: CO of 83 Squadron from 9 May 1943 until 2 November 1943 Station Commander […]
At the beginning of the 1930s, long before he was the chief of Bomber Command, Harris served as Commanding Officer of 210 Squadron, based at Pembroke Dock in Wales, which flew flying boats. Bennett, who had arrived at Pembroke Dock shortly before Harris, was to be one of Harris’s Flight […]
Allan Templeton (his first name was Arthur but he was known by his second name) was a wireless operator from Newfoundland. He had a flying career packed with incident even before he joined the Pathfinders in February 1945. See: Pre-Pathfinder War Service: Air Sea Rescue, Allan Templeton Amongst the many […]
A Medical Officer’s office in a Nissen hut, note the very cramped space and the stethoscope on the papers on the desk. The wartime RAF had very extensive medical services. Most were located in the hospitals and rehabilitation centres, and in the research establishments which investigated all aspects of aviation […]
CHIEF OF AIR STAFF From 1940 to 1946, Charles Portal was the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), the top man in the RAF and the Secretary of State for Air’s principal adviser. (The Secretary of State for Air was an elected politician; serving as a member of the Cabinet, […]
When the war ended, the RAF had 41,881 service people missing. The vast majority were from Bomber Command, lost on operations in Europe. A large proportion of the missing were thought to have been lost at sea, but about 60 per cent of the losses were estimated to be traceable […]
The Caterpillar Club was open to all aircrew whose lives had been saved by a parachute made of silk. It was run by Irvin Air Chutes of Great Britain, who made the parachutes. The tiny emblems were very easily lost, but some of have been cherished over the years. One […]
In the Second World War, the Path Finder Force was the RAF’s only officially delineated elite force. As such, it had a unique emblem of an eagle badge. The badge was worn on the left-hand-side breast pocket of the RAF uniform, under any decorations … Read the full article: The […]
On 11 February 1942, the prestigious German battleships the Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau and the Prinz Eugen broke out of the westerly French port of Brest and sailed east, up the English Channel, in a break for the security of the German-controlled waters beyond it. Amongst the RAF aircraft scrambled to attack […]
The epitaphs on many aircrew graves came from the hymn “O Valiant Hearts”. This remarkable and deeply poignant hymn is connected with the death of the outstanding pilot Ernest Deverill, seen here with his wife Joyce on their wedding day.
Here is a delightful photograph and story in another of the RAF’s brilliant PR campaigns. BONZO JOINED THE RAF IN ITALY
Our post of 27 April 2019 contained a Press photograph of Harris using a stereopticon. It was only when we came to do a further post on the subject that we realised the link between the Press photograph and an article in The Illustrated London News. Read the Full Article: Harris’s Office, Bomber […]
In February 2019 we featured Captain Bryan de Grineau’s drawing of Lancaster gunners ‘Hotting-up‘ which was published in The Illustrated London News in December 1943. Now here is another fascinating Bryan de Grineau drawing, also from The Illustrated London News, of the underground room at Bomber Command which housed the Photographic […]
Following on from the two last posts on the critical role of photography in the Air War, here is a wartime press photograph of the head of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, studying reconnaissance photographs using: a variation of the old-fashioned stereopticon which used to be kept […]