It's been one of those 'going nowhere special' weeks. It hasn't been particularly uninspiring, though, and even the return journey on Tuesday for the one that I took on Monday to collect some paint from Cheltenham had its upside, because I was sent to a different address. It wasn't inconceivable that the company had two sites in the town, after all; but when I got to the address I'd been given and found nothing there with the right name on it, Google had to be referred to. Only one address appeared - the one I'd collected from. There was, however, a phone no., so I rang to locate these premises, and my growing suspicions were confirmed when the receptionist announced that they'd moved from there to where they are now ... over a year ago! If only people could keep their records up to date, life more could be more efficient (and boring) for everyone!
Lots of little jobs filled the week, but amongst them all has been a strong sense of nostalgia. For example, one day I collected from an engineering firm in Sandy. Sandy as a town is very pleasant, by my estimation. There is a busy shopping street, with many independent shops, and it always seems to be sunny when I go there, which keeps the rose-tinted specs bright and shiny! The fact that the railway station is slightly outside of the town is reminiscent of my native Diss - although it's not the boring mile-long walk away that Diss has to suffer. I suppose it's the way one thought leads to another, that Harleston came to mind. About ten miles from Diss, it occupies another comfortable slot in my memory.
For four years in the 'seventies, I worked at an engineering firm there, whose premises have long since been demolished, and the site redeveloped. When I deliver to or collect from such firms these days, I often recall my time there. They say that smell is the strongest of our five senses, and the whiff of lubricating oil on a milling machine brings memories flooding back. Like the day when I visited one of the little offices on the shop floor with a query, and as I noted on my pad the answers I'd been given, the girl who'd provided them looked across and said, "Coo, haven't you got nice neat writing ... for a feller!"
At one time my immediate boss, Mr. S----ing, was given the additional responsibility of preparing accounts for a sister company nearby, which ran a foundry. He spent several days there, over a period of weeks, setting up the necessary recording systems, and on one of these days the Finance Director came into our office to see him. I reported his location and the FD (a patronising chap, always eager to create an impression) said to me in fatherly tones, "You see where things can lead, if you're bright, an' play your cards right. Look at S----in' there, gone off costin' a foundry!" From then on, I always paid attention when he was speakin' and noted that, if he thought he could be overheard, he would deliberately drop those g's in a quasi-aristocratic manner that encouraged ridicule rather than respect.
I don't have a TV, as I proudly declared to the licensing people when their regular update letter arrived last week. Instead, when word of something interesting crosses my inbox, I note the details and, when I have the time, I watch it on the catch-up facility. Thus came another dose of nostalgia this week as I watched the first part of 'Shop Girls' with Dr Pamela Cox. The references to 'living over the shop', and the pronouncement that grocers were one of the last trades to relinquish the 'all male' tradition were very much in tune with my own family history, as I wrote about at some length on this blog a couple of years ago. And if this weren't enough, I then got a second dose of the same thing when I listened to Robert Elmes' podcast of his programme on BBC London, where Dr Cox was one of his selected guests.
There were more memories yesterday evening, when I went to Guildford Hospital - or more to the point when I came home. The M25 was its usual clogged self, and I decided to stop for a snack at Wisley Services, hoping that it would have cleared by the time I set off again. This wasn't the case so, faced with a 26-minute delay and likely arrival time of 9.43pm, I opted to fight SatNav, and made my way straight up the M3 towards central London. I travelled on some roads that I'd not been on for several years and, as one who had scarcely driven within the M25 before taking up this work twelve years ago, I was quite pleased with how much I remembered, and how I'd managed to navigate my way despite, rather than helped by, the electronic marvel on my windscreen. I even surprised myself at one point by muttering, 'there used to be a scruffy factory along here somewhere, that I delivered to once ... oh, it must have been there, where that building site is!' And I was home by 9.45, which I felt was a much better use of my time than sitting in a queue!
Now I'm looking forward to a Saturday afternoon with a difference, for tomorrow I shall spend two-and-a-half hours in church, not on my knees in prayer, but taking a small part in, and hoping to enjoy all of, a concert described as 'Tea and Entertainment'. A party of young people from the church are off to Albania in a few weeks' time to support the work of one of our link missionaries, and the event is one of a number to raise funds to meet the costs of their expedition. I was amazed to see from the programme that no less than eighteen people have volunteered to take part, providing about thirty items to enthrall those present.
Friday 27 June 2014
Saturday 21 June 2014
Lots of Interesting Things
It's been an interesting week. Peeled back to its beginning, this week actually began on Saturday evening, when I was asked to rendevous with another driver who had been in London all day. He'd come back with something that resembled an almost spherical microwave oven, on a trolley, which we proceded to transfer to my van, ready for delivery on Monday morning.
When I arrived at an executive dwelling near Newbury, by 9.0 am as arranged (it was about 8.45), there was no one at home. Fearing a problematic delivery, I decided to drive around and return nearer 9.0, rather than wait suspiciously by the door. Just as I pulled up to the top of the drive, a car pulled up and the driver made encouraging gestures. It seemed that there had been an emergency, and he'd had to take someone to hospital. We swiftly transferred the machine to the boot of his car and, as we did so, I asked what it was. It seems that the days of false teeth arriving after weeks of waiting subsequent to a visit to the dentist, the sole purpose of which seems to be to fill one's mouth with the most choke-inspiring gunge, will soon be a thing of the past. This computer controlled machine makes the 'falsie', responding within an hour or so to a simple scan of the tooth, while the patient relaxes in the waiting room for a virtually instant fitting.
With a start like this, you could be excused for thinking that the week had provided all its share of interest at one go. But no, there were more interesting things to come, the first one that very afternoon. Many of Cambridgeshire's villages, for good reasons that I once knew but have now forgotten, boast Village Colleges instead of high schools, and one of these has recently extended its facilities by the replacement of its kitchen. My assignment was the delivery of a quantity of new tableware, and I certainly learned very quickly how heavy this can be. The consignment really required a larger van than mine, but I was there, and the suppliers, our customer, didn't want to blow their budget completely and have me replaced by a second vehicle. I was therefore loaded with all I felt my van could carry - its 400 kg limit - and the firm's sales rep. followed me with the remainder in his car.
Tuesday followed uneventfully, with the first of this week's two (now almost obligatory) visits to Pinewood Studios, and on to Chessington with some wood. Then Wednesday's highlight had to be the best one-liner of the year. I'd been sent to a customer in Hatfield to collect some printed matter, which turned out to be a number of large banners. These were taken to one of those semi-military establishements that are scattered across the south of England. After I'd been questioned by the security people at the gate, I was told where on the site to drive to, and was met there by a man in a Land Rover. As he transferred the items to his own vehicle, he smiled and said, "You wouldn't believe just how excited we are to receive these!" Something in his intonation told me that his tongue was very firmly in his cheek! I didn't dare ask him what he was going to do with them.
As I came home from that exchange, I was asked to call into the office before going home, and pick up a job someone else had collected. This proved to be a book in a larger-than-necessary envelope, which was to be delivered to an address in Dereham, Norfolk, by 9.0 am. My journey took me past part of the famous military training area in the Breckland, and I question whether it was just coincidence that a headland about three metres wide around all the cropped fields there has been seeded with poppies. They were both beautiful and thought-provoking. Much of that afternoon was taken up with the delivery of a washing machine and tumble dryer to a new property being built in Harpenden. SatNav doesn't take kindly to new developments, and it took some time to discover, only to find then that there was no one there to receive the goods!
And so to yesterday, and the biggest event of the week. At 1,132 feet long, with 17 decks and weighing 148,528 tonnes (according to Wikipedia), I have no hesitation in making this claim. My small part in a minor refurbishment of the Cunard flagship RMS Queen Mary 2 was the delivery of two replacement parts for a champagne bar. Here again, it was nice to get the full story, and it seemed that the original parts had been supplied in the wrong colour for a job that had to be completed later that day, before she sailed for New York. The refurbishment is one of three, the others being aboard her sister ships Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth 2.
As if there were nothing else to do but celebrate, today I decided to stroll into the Garden City, and discovered that there is music everywhere. As part of the summer's Letchworth Festival, today has been declared the day of dance, and one of the shopping centre's squares had a stage at one side, with a prominent programme of groups and individuals performing hourly during the day. Somehow the event provides a suitable complement to a good week on the road, and the lovely summer sunshine.
When I arrived at an executive dwelling near Newbury, by 9.0 am as arranged (it was about 8.45), there was no one at home. Fearing a problematic delivery, I decided to drive around and return nearer 9.0, rather than wait suspiciously by the door. Just as I pulled up to the top of the drive, a car pulled up and the driver made encouraging gestures. It seemed that there had been an emergency, and he'd had to take someone to hospital. We swiftly transferred the machine to the boot of his car and, as we did so, I asked what it was. It seems that the days of false teeth arriving after weeks of waiting subsequent to a visit to the dentist, the sole purpose of which seems to be to fill one's mouth with the most choke-inspiring gunge, will soon be a thing of the past. This computer controlled machine makes the 'falsie', responding within an hour or so to a simple scan of the tooth, while the patient relaxes in the waiting room for a virtually instant fitting.
With a start like this, you could be excused for thinking that the week had provided all its share of interest at one go. But no, there were more interesting things to come, the first one that very afternoon. Many of Cambridgeshire's villages, for good reasons that I once knew but have now forgotten, boast Village Colleges instead of high schools, and one of these has recently extended its facilities by the replacement of its kitchen. My assignment was the delivery of a quantity of new tableware, and I certainly learned very quickly how heavy this can be. The consignment really required a larger van than mine, but I was there, and the suppliers, our customer, didn't want to blow their budget completely and have me replaced by a second vehicle. I was therefore loaded with all I felt my van could carry - its 400 kg limit - and the firm's sales rep. followed me with the remainder in his car.
Tuesday followed uneventfully, with the first of this week's two (now almost obligatory) visits to Pinewood Studios, and on to Chessington with some wood. Then Wednesday's highlight had to be the best one-liner of the year. I'd been sent to a customer in Hatfield to collect some printed matter, which turned out to be a number of large banners. These were taken to one of those semi-military establishements that are scattered across the south of England. After I'd been questioned by the security people at the gate, I was told where on the site to drive to, and was met there by a man in a Land Rover. As he transferred the items to his own vehicle, he smiled and said, "You wouldn't believe just how excited we are to receive these!" Something in his intonation told me that his tongue was very firmly in his cheek! I didn't dare ask him what he was going to do with them.
As I came home from that exchange, I was asked to call into the office before going home, and pick up a job someone else had collected. This proved to be a book in a larger-than-necessary envelope, which was to be delivered to an address in Dereham, Norfolk, by 9.0 am. My journey took me past part of the famous military training area in the Breckland, and I question whether it was just coincidence that a headland about three metres wide around all the cropped fields there has been seeded with poppies. They were both beautiful and thought-provoking. Much of that afternoon was taken up with the delivery of a washing machine and tumble dryer to a new property being built in Harpenden. SatNav doesn't take kindly to new developments, and it took some time to discover, only to find then that there was no one there to receive the goods!
And so to yesterday, and the biggest event of the week. At 1,132 feet long, with 17 decks and weighing 148,528 tonnes (according to Wikipedia), I have no hesitation in making this claim. My small part in a minor refurbishment of the Cunard flagship RMS Queen Mary 2 was the delivery of two replacement parts for a champagne bar. Here again, it was nice to get the full story, and it seemed that the original parts had been supplied in the wrong colour for a job that had to be completed later that day, before she sailed for New York. The refurbishment is one of three, the others being aboard her sister ships Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth 2.
As if there were nothing else to do but celebrate, today I decided to stroll into the Garden City, and discovered that there is music everywhere. As part of the summer's Letchworth Festival, today has been declared the day of dance, and one of the shopping centre's squares had a stage at one side, with a prominent programme of groups and individuals performing hourly during the day. Somehow the event provides a suitable complement to a good week on the road, and the lovely summer sunshine.
Saturday 14 June 2014
Mustn't Grumble!
I've heard it said that, when Ivan met Ygor in a Moscow street some thirty years ago, one asked the other, 'How's it going?' and received the response, 'I can't complain.' In that apocryphal exchange there was, of course, a subtext about the restrictions of a totalitarian regime. There is no subtext about my description of this week as one about which I don't feel I can complain.
The first four days were, to say the least, spartan. By Thursday night I reckoned that my activities had not met the expectations of three days. Yesterday's demanding schedule, however, was both pleasant and productive. The first challenge was to take some radiator covers to a care home being refurbished in a Hampshire village. Once the delivery had been completed, I took great delight in refuelling at nearby Dibden Purlieu. Apart from the picturesque name - according to my reference book, it means 'deep valley on the outskirts of a forest' - it seemed quite a pleasant little town too. Then came breakfast at Rownham services, sitting on the car park in the sunshine with the van door open and a refreshing breeze outside . . . the only drawback was the constant whoosh of the motorway only a few yards away.
Later, I was able to listen to virtually all of the second day's play from Lords, as I delivered a small parcel to a dental surgery in Oswestry. Here again there was just one negative. Although small, the box had a weight totally out of proportion to its size, and I could hardly lift it. I was glad that there was a strong young athlete at the receiving end! As is to be expected on Friday afternoon, the journey was fraught with traffic and roadworks, but it was worth it for the delight of being so near to Wales and yet not quite there, with signposts directing to Wrexham, Llangollen and Welshpool . . . and Four Crosses, where I delivered almost four years ago, and have ever since wondered why a Welsh village should have such an English name. Pedwar Croesau wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.
That isn't to say that those first four days weren't busy. I managed 13 jobs, but only three of them were 50 miles or more - to Corby on Monday, to Bracknell on Wednesday, and a collection from Bury St Edmunds on Thursday. The rest were essentially local, and most of them one-at-a-time. The point about no cause for complaint came from what happened between them. At the start of the week my mind was still focussed on D-Day, and - not without precedent - I found that organising my thoughts, reading and re-reading all the material that I'd collected over the years, and then finding the right words to string it all together was far more demanding than the end-product might indicate. The result was that at teatime on Wednesday, and thanks to all the gaps between jobs, I posted my 'D-Day Special' blog here.
On more than one occasion I had just come to the end of a paragraph, or of a particular aspect of the story, when the phone rang to call me out. Amazingly, this phenomenon was still with me on Friday, as I returned from the delights of Hampshire. I have adopted the policy with my 'other' blog of making two posts per month: one at the beginning and one mid-month. I suddenly realized that, with a full weekend planned, another blog-post is due tomorrow. There was just time to review and tidy-up something I'd written some while ago, and schedule its publication for Sunday morning. I pressed 'Publish' as the phone rang.
Not for the first time, I find myself amazed at the pattern of my courier work. Not only is there a repeating genie, of which I write here often, but also, when the need arises, there's time to fit in other 'stuff' as well. And, boy - does it fit snugly, sometimes!
The first four days were, to say the least, spartan. By Thursday night I reckoned that my activities had not met the expectations of three days. Yesterday's demanding schedule, however, was both pleasant and productive. The first challenge was to take some radiator covers to a care home being refurbished in a Hampshire village. Once the delivery had been completed, I took great delight in refuelling at nearby Dibden Purlieu. Apart from the picturesque name - according to my reference book, it means 'deep valley on the outskirts of a forest' - it seemed quite a pleasant little town too. Then came breakfast at Rownham services, sitting on the car park in the sunshine with the van door open and a refreshing breeze outside . . . the only drawback was the constant whoosh of the motorway only a few yards away.
Later, I was able to listen to virtually all of the second day's play from Lords, as I delivered a small parcel to a dental surgery in Oswestry. Here again there was just one negative. Although small, the box had a weight totally out of proportion to its size, and I could hardly lift it. I was glad that there was a strong young athlete at the receiving end! As is to be expected on Friday afternoon, the journey was fraught with traffic and roadworks, but it was worth it for the delight of being so near to Wales and yet not quite there, with signposts directing to Wrexham, Llangollen and Welshpool . . . and Four Crosses, where I delivered almost four years ago, and have ever since wondered why a Welsh village should have such an English name. Pedwar Croesau wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.
That isn't to say that those first four days weren't busy. I managed 13 jobs, but only three of them were 50 miles or more - to Corby on Monday, to Bracknell on Wednesday, and a collection from Bury St Edmunds on Thursday. The rest were essentially local, and most of them one-at-a-time. The point about no cause for complaint came from what happened between them. At the start of the week my mind was still focussed on D-Day, and - not without precedent - I found that organising my thoughts, reading and re-reading all the material that I'd collected over the years, and then finding the right words to string it all together was far more demanding than the end-product might indicate. The result was that at teatime on Wednesday, and thanks to all the gaps between jobs, I posted my 'D-Day Special' blog here.
On more than one occasion I had just come to the end of a paragraph, or of a particular aspect of the story, when the phone rang to call me out. Amazingly, this phenomenon was still with me on Friday, as I returned from the delights of Hampshire. I have adopted the policy with my 'other' blog of making two posts per month: one at the beginning and one mid-month. I suddenly realized that, with a full weekend planned, another blog-post is due tomorrow. There was just time to review and tidy-up something I'd written some while ago, and schedule its publication for Sunday morning. I pressed 'Publish' as the phone rang.
Not for the first time, I find myself amazed at the pattern of my courier work. Not only is there a repeating genie, of which I write here often, but also, when the need arises, there's time to fit in other 'stuff' as well. And, boy - does it fit snugly, sometimes!
Wednesday 11 June 2014
D-DAY SPECIAL - The Story of Albemarle P1442
Because of the impact his death had upon my mother, I grew up in the knowledge that her brother had been a victim of the recent war. He had died on the Burma Railway. It wasn't long before I also learned of my eldest cousin, the firstborn of my father's eldest sister, who had also died on active service. Not until many years later, though, when I began seriously to look into my family history, did I discover that he had actually died on D-Day, 6th June 1944, and I started to piece together the circumstances of his death.
Wilfred Thomas Francis was born on 4th January 1922. I know nothing of his life up to the days before his death, save that he had joined the RAF, and had earned promotion to the rank of Sergeant. He had been posted to 42 OTU (Operational Training Unit) at RAF Ashbourne in Derbyshire. Ashbourne, and its satellite station Darley Moor, came into existence during the early years of World War II, and their history forms the subject of a book "RAF Ashbourne and Darley Moor - A Tale of Two Airfields" by Noel Ryan and Chris Percy (Wildtrack Publishing, 2007).
As the war progressed, the importance was recognised of using gliders for the precise delivery of equipment and personnel into a combat area. The Armstrong Whitworth "Albemarle" was originally designed as a twin-engined medium bomber but, by the time it came into service, superior bombers were already available with proven ability. The Albemarle was reclassified as 'general reconnaissance with bombing capability'; variants were produced as 'GT' (general transport) or 'ST' (special transport), and some of the 'ST' models were fitted with the necessary equipment to enable them to tow gliders. After brief initial use with operational squadrons, Albemarle P1442 was converted from GT to ST in July 1943, and was one of those supplied to RAF Ashbourne when it was equipped with the Albemarle in September.
As part of the preparations for the D-Day invasion, planes and personnel were gathered from training units like Ashbourne to swell the numbers available in existing operational squadrons. One of the first stages of Overlord was a preliminary strike against key bridges in Normandy, control of which would deny the enemy an easy route to counter-attack. Paratroops for this mission were to be flown in Albemarles from RAF Harwell in Oxfordshire. On 2nd June, 'C' Flight, 42 OTU was sent 'on temporary duty' to Hampstead Norris, Berkshire, which was a satellite airfield of Harwell.
In 2005, ex-WAAF Dorothy Drabble, of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Notts., shared her wartime memories on the BBC 'People's War' site. She celebrated her 21st birthday with a hangar party at Ashbourne, and continued to serve there as a flight mechanic (airframes), until the base closed at the end of the war. She wrote, "Just before D-Day I was one of only 3 WAAFs and 32 airmen chosen by W/O Juffs for a special job. . . . We were bussed to Hampstead Norris, a Fleet Air Arm station where our Albemarles appeared decked out in black and white stripes. Even then we were not too sure about what was happening; only that something big was afoot. Big - and back-breaking - for we loaded and unloaded, then re-loaded tons of window in and out of those Albemarles before they finally left. My aircraft, flown by Paddy Flynn, failed to return."
'Window' was the name given to bundles of thin strips of aluminium, dropped at timed intervals, two bundles at a time, designed to 'fool' enemy radar. If dropped correctly, they would together present on the radar screens a picture of an aircraft that was totally fictitious.
More than sixty years had taken their toll on Dorothy's memory; the pilot's name, all records agree, was Flt Lt J A Finn; the other crew members were Flt Lt D C Morgan, DFM (navigator/bomber); F/O D F Smart (navigator/ bomber); P/O G R Wellsman (navigator/bomber); F/O A L Andrews (wireless operator/air gunner); F/Sgt R Dunk (wireless operator/air gunner) and Sgt W T Francis (air gunner). In their book, Ryan and Percy suggest that "the duplication of 'trades' within the crew reflects the fact that they were all volunteers for this mission, a hastily assembled 'scratch' crew." Wilfred's sister once told me proudly, "He volunteered for that mission; he hadn't finished his training."
By contrast, Flt Lt Finn was a staff pilot at Ashbourne, and very experienced, while Flt Lt Morgan had joined the RAF volunteer reserve in 1939, was called into the regular service on the outbreak of war, and had won the DFM in a bombing raid in 1941, prior to his promotion. One of the significant contributors to this section of "A Tale of Two Airfields" was his son-in-law, Len Simms, as a result of whose resources it appears that Mrs Morgan was living at (or had been evacuated to) an address in Letchworth only a couple of streets from my present home! The letter she received there from the Air Ministry in September 1944 attempts to shed some light on the fate of P1442.
It refers to a report received from the International Red Cross saying that, "at 1.0 am on 6th June, an Albemarle was shot down and that the seven unknown occupants were killed. The place of the crash and the burial place are not stated." It then goes on to mention another Albemarle, also missing that night, also with seven occupants. This plane did not leave Hampstead Norris until 2.29 am, however, so the Air Ministry had concluded that the report referred to P1442, which had taken off at 11.48 pm.
A number of threads have been discovered on internet forums concerning these two Albemarles that were lost from Hampstead Norris that day. Particularly informative are two exchanges on a forum called Royal Air Force Commands. The first was in June 2004, and seeks information about a list of 14 names, half of which were the crew of P1442, and the remainder the crew of that other Albemarle, V1745, from ORTU (Operational Refresher Training Unit), RAF 38 Group, which was based at Hampstead Norris. All 14 were listed as 'missing' in the London Times Royal Air Force Roll of Honour on 2nd September, just 3 days before the letter was sent by the Air Ministry to Mrs Morgan. In this exchange it is stated that V1745 crashed 5km SW of Saint-Valery-en-Caux at 01:00. As a point of interest, this location is - in a direct line - about 100 km from the beaches where the landings were to take place!
An online database of lost aircraft states that this plane left Hampstead Norris at 2.29 am on 6th June, as does the Air Ministry letter. However, it also confirms the place of loss as Saint-Sylvain, which is indeed near Saint-Valery-en-Caux, and cites the burial place of the crew as the local churchyard there. In further searches I discovered another website, which not only gives full details of the flight and the crew, but also includes pictures of their graves in the churchyard. There is also a link to another site where there are pictures of a memorial elsewhere in the village. The only disagreement is in regard to the crash time. 1.0 am is common to both the Air Ministry and the forum exchange, but is clearly not possible with a 2.29 am take-off. The source quoted on the forum for this crash time spoke of a German report, but the reference quoted proved false, and refers to an American bomber that crashed on 12th July. To my mind, the reference in the Air Ministry letter to the International Red Cross also indicates an enemy source. Given the hectic circumstances, I'm inclined to believe that, whatever the truth of the original report, a single error was replicated, and that the true identity and outcome of the 2.29 take-off is as evidenced by the references here.
Another exchange on the same forum in November 2007 confirms all these details, and refers to "another [Albemarle] said to have crashed near Caen at 5 am". A reply from Bruno Lecaplain, founder of a website dedicated to the memory of 38 Group, RAF, states categorically that V1745 crashed near St Valery (as detailed above), and that "P1442 of 42 OTU should be the one which crashed near Caen."
The elimination of V1745 still leaves the fate of P1442 undecided. In their book, Ryan and Percy present two possible ultimate destinies of P1442 and its crew, and I can do no better than to quote this passage verbatim. "Many [aircraft that were shot down] met their fate in the shallow valley that stretches between Falaise and the southern approaches to Caen. These aircraft would have fallen at great speed. On impact, they usually buried themselves many feet underground leaving only a crater and the odd piece of surface wreckage scattered as surface debris. In northern France in 1944, whilst the local farmers were beginning to gather in the early harvest, they witnessed many air crashes. When a plane crashed onto arable land the farmer, despite his grief and sorrow regarding the plane and its crew, could not afford the time or labour to extract the wreck from deep underground. Having a living to make, they would simply fill in the crater and sow new seed over the wreck. Unless P1442 was lost over the English Channel, it can only be speculated that it may bave been entombed in such a way."
I find it impossible to recollect what was going on in my own life at the age of 22 years, 5 months and 2 days - which makes me all the more grateful for the sacrifice made by Wilfred and thousands of other young men on D-Day.
Wilfred Thomas Francis was born on 4th January 1922. I know nothing of his life up to the days before his death, save that he had joined the RAF, and had earned promotion to the rank of Sergeant. He had been posted to 42 OTU (Operational Training Unit) at RAF Ashbourne in Derbyshire. Ashbourne, and its satellite station Darley Moor, came into existence during the early years of World War II, and their history forms the subject of a book "RAF Ashbourne and Darley Moor - A Tale of Two Airfields" by Noel Ryan and Chris Percy (Wildtrack Publishing, 2007).
As the war progressed, the importance was recognised of using gliders for the precise delivery of equipment and personnel into a combat area. The Armstrong Whitworth "Albemarle" was originally designed as a twin-engined medium bomber but, by the time it came into service, superior bombers were already available with proven ability. The Albemarle was reclassified as 'general reconnaissance with bombing capability'; variants were produced as 'GT' (general transport) or 'ST' (special transport), and some of the 'ST' models were fitted with the necessary equipment to enable them to tow gliders. After brief initial use with operational squadrons, Albemarle P1442 was converted from GT to ST in July 1943, and was one of those supplied to RAF Ashbourne when it was equipped with the Albemarle in September.
As part of the preparations for the D-Day invasion, planes and personnel were gathered from training units like Ashbourne to swell the numbers available in existing operational squadrons. One of the first stages of Overlord was a preliminary strike against key bridges in Normandy, control of which would deny the enemy an easy route to counter-attack. Paratroops for this mission were to be flown in Albemarles from RAF Harwell in Oxfordshire. On 2nd June, 'C' Flight, 42 OTU was sent 'on temporary duty' to Hampstead Norris, Berkshire, which was a satellite airfield of Harwell.
In 2005, ex-WAAF Dorothy Drabble, of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Notts., shared her wartime memories on the BBC 'People's War' site. She celebrated her 21st birthday with a hangar party at Ashbourne, and continued to serve there as a flight mechanic (airframes), until the base closed at the end of the war. She wrote, "Just before D-Day I was one of only 3 WAAFs and 32 airmen chosen by W/O Juffs for a special job. . . . We were bussed to Hampstead Norris, a Fleet Air Arm station where our Albemarles appeared decked out in black and white stripes. Even then we were not too sure about what was happening; only that something big was afoot. Big - and back-breaking - for we loaded and unloaded, then re-loaded tons of window in and out of those Albemarles before they finally left. My aircraft, flown by Paddy Flynn, failed to return."
'Window' was the name given to bundles of thin strips of aluminium, dropped at timed intervals, two bundles at a time, designed to 'fool' enemy radar. If dropped correctly, they would together present on the radar screens a picture of an aircraft that was totally fictitious.
More than sixty years had taken their toll on Dorothy's memory; the pilot's name, all records agree, was Flt Lt J A Finn; the other crew members were Flt Lt D C Morgan, DFM (navigator/bomber); F/O D F Smart (navigator/ bomber); P/O G R Wellsman (navigator/bomber); F/O A L Andrews (wireless operator/air gunner); F/Sgt R Dunk (wireless operator/air gunner) and Sgt W T Francis (air gunner). In their book, Ryan and Percy suggest that "the duplication of 'trades' within the crew reflects the fact that they were all volunteers for this mission, a hastily assembled 'scratch' crew." Wilfred's sister once told me proudly, "He volunteered for that mission; he hadn't finished his training."
By contrast, Flt Lt Finn was a staff pilot at Ashbourne, and very experienced, while Flt Lt Morgan had joined the RAF volunteer reserve in 1939, was called into the regular service on the outbreak of war, and had won the DFM in a bombing raid in 1941, prior to his promotion. One of the significant contributors to this section of "A Tale of Two Airfields" was his son-in-law, Len Simms, as a result of whose resources it appears that Mrs Morgan was living at (or had been evacuated to) an address in Letchworth only a couple of streets from my present home! The letter she received there from the Air Ministry in September 1944 attempts to shed some light on the fate of P1442.
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| Albemarle P1442 (courtesy of Imperial War Museum) |
A number of threads have been discovered on internet forums concerning these two Albemarles that were lost from Hampstead Norris that day. Particularly informative are two exchanges on a forum called Royal Air Force Commands. The first was in June 2004, and seeks information about a list of 14 names, half of which were the crew of P1442, and the remainder the crew of that other Albemarle, V1745, from ORTU (Operational Refresher Training Unit), RAF 38 Group, which was based at Hampstead Norris. All 14 were listed as 'missing' in the London Times Royal Air Force Roll of Honour on 2nd September, just 3 days before the letter was sent by the Air Ministry to Mrs Morgan. In this exchange it is stated that V1745 crashed 5km SW of Saint-Valery-en-Caux at 01:00. As a point of interest, this location is - in a direct line - about 100 km from the beaches where the landings were to take place!
An online database of lost aircraft states that this plane left Hampstead Norris at 2.29 am on 6th June, as does the Air Ministry letter. However, it also confirms the place of loss as Saint-Sylvain, which is indeed near Saint-Valery-en-Caux, and cites the burial place of the crew as the local churchyard there. In further searches I discovered another website, which not only gives full details of the flight and the crew, but also includes pictures of their graves in the churchyard. There is also a link to another site where there are pictures of a memorial elsewhere in the village. The only disagreement is in regard to the crash time. 1.0 am is common to both the Air Ministry and the forum exchange, but is clearly not possible with a 2.29 am take-off. The source quoted on the forum for this crash time spoke of a German report, but the reference quoted proved false, and refers to an American bomber that crashed on 12th July. To my mind, the reference in the Air Ministry letter to the International Red Cross also indicates an enemy source. Given the hectic circumstances, I'm inclined to believe that, whatever the truth of the original report, a single error was replicated, and that the true identity and outcome of the 2.29 take-off is as evidenced by the references here.
Another exchange on the same forum in November 2007 confirms all these details, and refers to "another [Albemarle] said to have crashed near Caen at 5 am". A reply from Bruno Lecaplain, founder of a website dedicated to the memory of 38 Group, RAF, states categorically that V1745 crashed near St Valery (as detailed above), and that "P1442 of 42 OTU should be the one which crashed near Caen."
The elimination of V1745 still leaves the fate of P1442 undecided. In their book, Ryan and Percy present two possible ultimate destinies of P1442 and its crew, and I can do no better than to quote this passage verbatim. "Many [aircraft that were shot down] met their fate in the shallow valley that stretches between Falaise and the southern approaches to Caen. These aircraft would have fallen at great speed. On impact, they usually buried themselves many feet underground leaving only a crater and the odd piece of surface wreckage scattered as surface debris. In northern France in 1944, whilst the local farmers were beginning to gather in the early harvest, they witnessed many air crashes. When a plane crashed onto arable land the farmer, despite his grief and sorrow regarding the plane and its crew, could not afford the time or labour to extract the wreck from deep underground. Having a living to make, they would simply fill in the crater and sow new seed over the wreck. Unless P1442 was lost over the English Channel, it can only be speculated that it may bave been entombed in such a way."
I find it impossible to recollect what was going on in my own life at the age of 22 years, 5 months and 2 days - which makes me all the more grateful for the sacrifice made by Wilfred and thousands of other young men on D-Day.
Saturday 7 June 2014
"Seventy Years on"
I've
written here before about the three 'shifts' into which my work falls,
identified by the state of work allocation at the beginning of a day.
This week has brought to my attention another kind of distinction: one
that has existed as long as I've been doing this work, but which has not before
been noted and classified. I refer to the difference between 'solid' days
and 'split' days. The former, easily defined by the name, simply stretch
from my departure in the morning, and involve a number of jobs - either
distinct or overlapping - which fill the day until I return home for an evening
- however short - and bed. Split days, however, include a substantial
period between returning from a job or jobs, during the late morning and
leaving for another later in the day.
This week has given me three 'split' days, which have
offered the opportunity for a variety of tasks at home, in addition to the work
on the road. Workwise, the only real highlight was on
Monday, when after a mid-afternoon break, I was challenged
with driving up to Knowsley (on the far side of Liverpool) with a box that
would be brought to me at home at about 5.45pm. I was thus home well
after midnight, and only did one short job on Tuesday, which allowed me to
catch up on a couple of items of personal correspondence, and send off a brief
narrative to RTE's History Show about my two Irish first cousins, once removed,
who lost their lives in WWI.
After meditative music at Sunday evening's church service,
I was reminded of a tape I acquired about 25 years ago at Taizé, and I wondered
whether I had ever included this in the few tapes that I'd managed (in a burst
of enthusiasm that followed my acquisition of the appropriate software) to put
onto my computer. I found that it was not, but a 'split' day on Thursday
enabled me to rectify this deficit, and then on Friday a similar opportunity
was used to tidy up the filing of the 276 tracks that I have now computerised
in this way. Given the large box of tapes that are still sitting in my bedroom,
this is only the tip - and perhaps not even that - of that particular iceberg!
Friday ended the week with a double burst of emotion.
I had been sent with two kegs of ale to a pub near King's Lynn, arriving
there just after 6.0pm. On my way home, I patronised a kebab stall
spotted while passing a market place, and then parked in a lay-by on the A10 to
enjoy this in the sunshine. As I did so, a wave of 'end of week'
nostalgia came over me, thinking of the relaxing day ahead of me, and the
general feelings of 'Friday completeness' of many weeks in my past life.
And then, as I journeyed on once more, came the BBC-Radio2 programme to
commemorate the seventieth anniversary of D-Day.
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| Albemarle P-1442 (Picture courtesy of the Imperial War Museum) |
My own
commemoration had taken place on Thursday evening, for it was during the night of
5/6th June that my eldest first cousin had died. He was part of the crew
of Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle P1442, one of a flight of four such planes that had been seconded from their Derbyshire
base to take part in Operation Overlord. They took off from RAF Hampstead
Norris in Berkshire at twelve minutes to midnight. Theirs
was the only one of the four not to return. So on Thursday evening, just before bedtime, I raised a glass to his memory.
This afternoon I have been reviewing the collection of correspondence, internet downloads and other paraphernalia that I have collected over the years, to piece together the full story of P1442 and, when time permits, I intend to provide a decent account on this blog. It's a story that deserves a post all to itself, however, rather than swamping one of these normal weekly offerings!
Sunday 1 June 2014
That Holiday Feeling . . .
Although it only started with a Bank Holiday, this week has had a sort of holiday feel right through - rather like the name that goes right through the middle of seaside rock.
Tuesday started off with what has now become an 'old familiar', Pinewood Studios, settling me comfortably back into work mode. This time, however, a new precedent was set. As I drove round the M25 - in true car park style, as ever - came a call asking me to go up to Hemel Hempstead afterwards, to collect some air conditioning units for an address in Leicester. A 'decent' local job completed the day, taking some paint to a furniture company Haverhill.
Wednesday began with two jobs that fitted nicely together. First came an early collection of some veneer from Stevenage to go to a joinery company in St Ives, and then down to the little industrial estate in Little Paxton, which is easier to enter from the northern side. Here I loaded four heavy boxes of printed matter for a direct mailing company in the West Midlands. On the way back, I was diverted to a plastics firm in Huntingdon, where I collected a small package for Steeple Morden. It's always good to have three jobs in a row like that because, even if they don't overlap, the 'go-to-load' mileage is eliminated, or at least reduced.
Then, after two decent and enjoyable days, the 'holiday feeling' kicked in. On Thursday morning the repeating genie took me to the same pretty town where I'd collected Tuesday's paint, this time to deliver some items to their science park. I'd just returned home, when I was despatched to the seaside, in particular Great Yarmouth. "Dear old Yarmouth," the comics used to say, "you can tell that by looking in the shops!" Well, I didn't get as far as the shops, for my collection was on the industrial site to the west of the resort. However, when I then set SatNav to find the nearest Esso station to refuel before returning with my cargo, I was sent out to the lovely broadland village of Ormesby. I began to feel young, and on holiday again . . . almost! But even holidays can be tiring, and I didn't really appreciate being called out in the evening to take something up to Salford. There was apparently no one else available so, since it was a hospital, I set forth, only to be told before I'd gone a mile that they had found a source to meet their needs much nearer to them, so would I please return the goods whence I'd collected them. Willingly!
Friday started with another 'regular', from our laboratory customer in Royston to West Suffolk Hospital. On my way back, I was re-directed to the seaside again. This time it was to Clacton-on-Sea. You may remember that bath of two Saturdays ago? Just round the corner from that prestigious bathroom store is a food ingredients warehouse, where I now collected quite a lot of vinegar. Friday had clearly been a busy day: I hadn't yet got back home to deliver the vinegar when the phone rang a second time. On the way, would I please collect some medicine for a private hospital in Northwood, and a spare key for someone who had locked himself out of his van near Gatwick airport?
Being the last Friday of the month, it was our church's day of prayer and fasting. I'd made the 7.0 service in the morning, but it was clear that I wouldn't be making the corresponding evening gathering. By the time I'd withstood the M25, where the traffic was actually stationary in several places, it was almost 7.30 when I found my way to a convenient place to pull off the road in the roadworks and rang the number I'd been given for the victim of locked keys. It turned out that the van was no further away than the roundabout in front of me, and once past the security fence, it was the work of a moment for my contact to open the door, recover the key, and I was on my way. Strangely, I was less tired after 400 miles on Friday that I had been after 280 on Thursday. Nevertheless, I was now happy to head for Cobham services to break my 12-hour fast: rarely has KFC been more welcome!
Tuesday started off with what has now become an 'old familiar', Pinewood Studios, settling me comfortably back into work mode. This time, however, a new precedent was set. As I drove round the M25 - in true car park style, as ever - came a call asking me to go up to Hemel Hempstead afterwards, to collect some air conditioning units for an address in Leicester. A 'decent' local job completed the day, taking some paint to a furniture company Haverhill.
Wednesday began with two jobs that fitted nicely together. First came an early collection of some veneer from Stevenage to go to a joinery company in St Ives, and then down to the little industrial estate in Little Paxton, which is easier to enter from the northern side. Here I loaded four heavy boxes of printed matter for a direct mailing company in the West Midlands. On the way back, I was diverted to a plastics firm in Huntingdon, where I collected a small package for Steeple Morden. It's always good to have three jobs in a row like that because, even if they don't overlap, the 'go-to-load' mileage is eliminated, or at least reduced.
Then, after two decent and enjoyable days, the 'holiday feeling' kicked in. On Thursday morning the repeating genie took me to the same pretty town where I'd collected Tuesday's paint, this time to deliver some items to their science park. I'd just returned home, when I was despatched to the seaside, in particular Great Yarmouth. "Dear old Yarmouth," the comics used to say, "you can tell that by looking in the shops!" Well, I didn't get as far as the shops, for my collection was on the industrial site to the west of the resort. However, when I then set SatNav to find the nearest Esso station to refuel before returning with my cargo, I was sent out to the lovely broadland village of Ormesby. I began to feel young, and on holiday again . . . almost! But even holidays can be tiring, and I didn't really appreciate being called out in the evening to take something up to Salford. There was apparently no one else available so, since it was a hospital, I set forth, only to be told before I'd gone a mile that they had found a source to meet their needs much nearer to them, so would I please return the goods whence I'd collected them. Willingly!
Friday started with another 'regular', from our laboratory customer in Royston to West Suffolk Hospital. On my way back, I was re-directed to the seaside again. This time it was to Clacton-on-Sea. You may remember that bath of two Saturdays ago? Just round the corner from that prestigious bathroom store is a food ingredients warehouse, where I now collected quite a lot of vinegar. Friday had clearly been a busy day: I hadn't yet got back home to deliver the vinegar when the phone rang a second time. On the way, would I please collect some medicine for a private hospital in Northwood, and a spare key for someone who had locked himself out of his van near Gatwick airport?
Being the last Friday of the month, it was our church's day of prayer and fasting. I'd made the 7.0 service in the morning, but it was clear that I wouldn't be making the corresponding evening gathering. By the time I'd withstood the M25, where the traffic was actually stationary in several places, it was almost 7.30 when I found my way to a convenient place to pull off the road in the roadworks and rang the number I'd been given for the victim of locked keys. It turned out that the van was no further away than the roundabout in front of me, and once past the security fence, it was the work of a moment for my contact to open the door, recover the key, and I was on my way. Strangely, I was less tired after 400 miles on Friday that I had been after 280 on Thursday. Nevertheless, I was now happy to head for Cobham services to break my 12-hour fast: rarely has KFC been more welcome!
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