97 Squadron, heavy bombers
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. Image above: Remembrance scroll, sadly issued in many thousands, this one for James Kirkwood, 97 Squadron, who died with all his crew on 17 December […]
We have just received this wonderful photograph, taken in 1945, after Ralph Saunders’ return from prisoner of war camp. Ralph was shot down on the Leipzig operation of 20/21 October 1943 when flying with the Painter crew, 97 Squadron. Only two of the crew survived to become prisoners of war. […]
A question which comes up perennially about the Pathfinders is why some of them were flying with 5 Group as opposed to 8 Group (as the Pathfinders had become in early 1943) and why they continued to be awarded PFF badges and certificates. This page provides the answer: PFF Squadrons […]
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 Palmer crew, 97 Squadron. There is no further information for […]
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 badly damaged by incendiaries dropped by another aircraft when over […]
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, including his rescue by his adopted brother Donald and Teddy, […]
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 as the Robertson crew. This was the Kenneth Brown 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 of Nuremburg. Five of the crew were killed immediately, including […]
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 bomber for Bomber Command during WWll.” Baker was flying with […]
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 ops at the worst time of the bombing war – […]
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 so many other of these specialist officers, who had already […]
Last summer, when lockdown was in progress in many parts of Europe, Dr Olav Heinemann of the University of Duisburg-Essen came across a stone commemorating an RAF crew in his local churchyard at Gelsenkirchen. His curiosity thoroughly aroused, he researched the story behind the stone and his article “A Chance […]
For more details of the display at RAF Wyton Heritage Centre, see this page.
The Archive has its roots in a tragedy which occurred on 16/17 December 1943, afterwards known as Black Thursday. At that time, the crew of Ted Thackway were serving with 97 Squadron, which was stationed at Bourn in Cambridgeshire. The crew’s first operation was to Berlin on 16 December. Returning safely […]
Norman McIntyre, later of 97 Squadron, PFF, at the ceremony which marked the completion of his training as a navigator: RAAF Navigator receives his Wings