Originally Posted by
pulse1
... After this first solo flight, his euphoria was short lived as he entered the crew room to discover a notice which informed him, and one or two others, that they were being sent to the other side of the airfield to be trained as navigators. Along with his friend George Sproates (see Post7851) their initial reaction to this was that they felt “stitched up” or “sold down the river” and they were very angry. They felt like deliberately failing the course until they realised that it meant that they would probably end up with a worse job and, once he got started, he actually found it quite interesting.
Dear pulse1,
First of all apologies to all involved as I have to admit that I am not a pilot and have nothing to do with aviation, however something you posted came up in my google search that I couldn't pass by.
To explain I have to quickly tell you that I am a native Finn and due to the nature of the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union after WW2 it was not allowed or advised to talk about the war and thus barely know anything about my grandfathers' time defending our country. However there is plenty of information available on my British partners grandfather and have been incredibly interested in his time as an RAF navigator, hence my keen googling.
My partner's grandfather was George Sproates originally from a mining family in the North East and served as a navigator during the war. I have shared some of the information in your post with George's daughter and she said that it definitely sounds like him...! Sadly he passed away in the 60's after surviving a crash in Libya and two years in L3 as a POW.
The family would be incredibly interested in hearing stories about him, if it would be possible to pass this message on to your friend Frank?
Thank you very in advance for your help..!
Sanna