The background to the RAF, Bomber Command and the Pathfinders’ war
This book has been 14 years in the making; it contains many personal stories, letters and photographs from the Archive, and has been written by our Chairperson, Jennie Mack Gray. It is on sale in our new Shop from which all profits go to the RAF Pathfinders Archive. We are […]
During the war, public opinion in Britain and the Dominions was firmly on the side of Bomber Command. However, there was also some determined criticism of Bomber Command’s campaigns, not least by George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, who argued the case against area bombing in the House of Lords. (Note: […]
Bomber aircraft did not just drop bombs, they also dropped counter-propaganda such as the miniature Dutch newspaper De Wervelwind. Its main purpose was to sustain Dutch morale, but it was also a reminder to the Germans that they had a most formidable enemy. Read the Full Article: RAF Bombers Deliver […]
This public information poster was printed in Berlin in 1940. The designer was Sander-Herwig. Note the RAF roundel on the wing of the aircraft, and the bomb in the skeleton’s hand. The poster is a forewarning of the later demonisation of the RAF bomber crews as terrorflieger, ‘the terror fliers’, […]
The three Victoria Crosses awarded to Pathfinders were all gazetted in 1945, some time after the deaths of the recipients. The three men who performed extraordinary feats of heroism and self-sacrifice were Ian Willoughby Bazalgette, Robert Anthony Maurice Palmer, and Edwin Swales. Read the Full Article: The Three Pathfinder Victoria […]
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 […]
One of the reasons why 16/17 December 1943 was so disastrous was the extreme limitations of landing aids. The only facilities available for such severe bad weather conditions were FIDO and a system known as SBA. Read the Full Article: 16/17 December 1943 – FIDO & Landing Aids
The disastrous night of 16/17 December 1943 came just one month into the Battle of Berlin, Bomber Command’s all-out attempt to win the war by attacking the German capital and other key cities. But it was not the Germans who were responsible for the heavy losses that night, but the RAF’s eternal […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
More from the fascinating 1957 book Evidence in Camera. Wing Commander Peter Stewart was chosen to command a new Assistant Directorate of Photographic Intelligence in the summer of 1941. At this time reconnaissance photographs were showing how badly Bomber Command was failing in hitting its targets, and the photographic evidence […]
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