Hi Ian,
I happened upon your posting whilst arranging a visit to the 5BFTS reunion in Bedford next weekend.
I knew that my uncle P/O Francis William Baker (my mother's brother) had been killed in WW2 and was buried somewhere in France. That was about it until I came across some papers at my parent's house and found that he had trained in Florida.
With my husband and my brother, I began to research his RAF career and very quickly, thanks to the wonders of the internet, found the Clewiston Museum site (have you seen this?) and discovered that posted there were photographs of all the Course members. After some trawling we found him on Course 11.
Number 5 British Flight Training School - Course 11
Frank is 2nd from the left (front row) and your father is 5th from the left - so they must have known each other!
We would love to see your photographs (maybe Frank's in one of them). If you could possibly email them to me, I could take them to the reunion and maybe someone there might recognise them.
Frank went on to train as a Lancaster pilot and served with 460 Squadron (RAAF) based at Binbrook. Tragically he was killed on his first op (along with all his crew) during the disastrous raid on Mailly-le Camp, on the night of 3rd/4th May 1944. He and all his crew are buried in a beautiful churchyard at Dommartin-Letree. We have just returned from visiting their graves.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Regards, Liz