Donald Bennett’s dauntless, driven personality moulded the Pathfinders into a fearsome force
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 …
During his time commanding the Path Finder Force, Donald Bennett only sent two direct personal message to the men, women, squadrons and stations under his command. The first was 0n 22 August 1943, one year …
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, …
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 …
Bennett’s dauntless, energetic, driven personality would be inextricably woven throughout the character of the Path Finder Force. Born on a cattle ranch in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia on 14 September 1910, Donald Clifford Tyndall Bennett, familiarly …
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. Temporary grave marker for the Coates crew, killed 25 March …
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 …
I was flicking through Donald Bennett’s autobiography Pathfinder yesterday, and came upon this passage, which seemed strangely reminiscent of a certain situation in the British Parliament today. Bennett is writing of the time that, having …
