Lost Bomber Data Base.

[forget]

Cracking data base here -

http://www.lostbombers.co.uk/

[old,not bold]

Absolutely right, excellent.

I've just looked up the list of aircraft lost on the same night my father's was shot down...one of 13. The next night...19. And so on, for days, weeks, months.

How did they do it?

[forget]

I posted the link after a couple of minutes checking it out. I've just been back on there and plugged in my birthday 2/8/43. I used 3/8/43 as Date Two and then checked that all aircraft had actually taken-off on the 2nd. One Lancaster loss took-off, and crashed, on the 3rd so that was deleted.
I'm staggered at that one days losses, and I don't suppose it was a particularly 'bad' day.

Lancasters. 13.
Halifaxs. 11.
Stirlings. 3.
Wellingtons. 6.

PS. Every aircraft, apart from a Wellington, was lost on a Hamburg raid.

[forget]

Is the author of the web still with us? He'd be 77 this year. I've now seen him mentioned on other recent webs as not replying to e-mails. He doesn't give his name anywhere, but there are clues.

........... I then joined the Air Traffic Control (A.T.C.) staff at the Vickers test Airfield at Wisley for a brief period before coming to my wife’s home in Northumberland. I then took up employment at Woolsington, Newcastle City Airport in September 1961 where I remained until a medical enforced early retirement in 1985. As you can tell my passion is for aviation.

He was very ill at one point. Any long timers at Newcastle ATC able to work out who he is - and check how he is?

[tornadoken]

5% "planned" attrition, 25 combat sorties per tour = most of them did not complete the tour. All set up after BEF expulsion from France, because it was "cheaper" than wading up a beach. Not to infer that Bomber Command aircrew were in any way more valuable than anyone else, but 55,000 lost exceeded 3x,000 Empire officers lost in WW1, which was seen as devastating.

[Fareastdriver]

lostbombers .co. is an excellent site. It was, however, disappointing that the sacrifices made by 90 Sqn when the RAF experimented with high altitude daylight bombing with the Fortress I (B17C) in 1941, aren't mentioned.

[norman atkinson]

I entered 17th April 1942 which was the date that John Nettleton won his VC on the first Lancaster raid to Augsburg. His wing man went in to the target already in flames and he survived 'the Great Escape' out of Stalag Luft 3. This was 'pukka gen'

I now suggest that only two squadrons took part but look at the registration numbers and where else they were claimed to be attacking.

Sorry, it doesn't wash. Nor does the earlier London Gazette extract awarding him the Victoria Cross.It was dated 8th April 1942 but it does confirm my 'pukka gen' about the local boy.

I then took the Glenn Miller death on 15th December 1944. The US raid on Ulm was aborted and the Lancs went back in a few days later.
With no casualties- on the most heavily bombed town in Germany?

Swing the lamp, shut the hangar doors!

Two dates- how many more are suspect?

[Kiwiguy]

On a slightly different tack, I learned a while ago that the Luftwaffe's wartime records were hidden in a mine in Silesia, but in late March 1945 they were shipped by train to Linz, Austria and burned over a month long orgy of destruction.

[BeefyBoy]

"in the series Z1040-Z1181 (108). X9663; X9678 converted to Mk.XV1. Airborne from Advanced Base (sic). Lost in the North Sea off the Dutch coast, cause not established. F/S Marvell's body was recovered from the sea and is buried in Bergen General Cemetery; the rest of the crew have no known graves. F/S Marvell's award, gained while serving with the 103 Sqdn, was Gazetted as recently as 26 May42. Sgt B.J.Daley RNZAF KIA P/O S.S.Martin DFC RCAF KIA Sgt T.W.Belton KIA Sgt T.I.McKenzie KIA F/S A.Marvell DFM KIA Sgt G.C.Falconer KIA "

I found this website facinating as well as solving a family mystery that has been passed down through my mums family. In the text above regarding the crew of Wellington X9975 are two names which I have highlighted. Both Sgt McKenzie and Sgt Falconer were childhood friends of my uncle who joined the RAF on the same day. They had also grown up together as their parents lived next door to each other. How strange to grow up together and to die together in the same aircraft.

My mothers family only ever thought that the aircraft had crashed in Holland somewhere as nobody up till now had identified the area of the crash site. As I was growing up, I actually inherited an Air Gunner Brevet which belonged to Sgt 'Tam' McKenzie. It may actually still be in a box in the loft.

[P.Pilcher]

Very moving to find both my Uncle's aircraft and his exploits accurately recorded. One of the few who achieved a "tour" as a Whitley captain before his 19th birthday. He never made it into the airlines though as he had hoped and originally planned. After Stalag Luft 3, the great escape and eventual repatriation, he was out of recency and only had experience in flying two engined aeroplanes..... where have I heard of that sort of thing more recently!

P.P.

[rolling20]

Tornadoken:5% "planned" attrition, 25 combat sorties per tour ....
Duff Gen old boy, 30 trips for the first tour, 20 for the second and 45 for a Pathfinder tour...

[tornadoken]

Ta. Even worse. ONB: How did they do it?

[old,not bold]

My father said that he did it because refusal was not an option; it was a combination of simple discipline, ie obeying the order to go, and the fear of others' reaction if you refused (now known as peer group pressure). He also said that the belief that it would never happen to you, natural in a young man, also carried them a long way.

He laughed when people put it down to courage and bravery. He said there wasn't much of that, at least as far as he was concerned. You did it because you had to, it was your duty.

I don't know about any of the others. I suspect they were the same, by and large.

Mind you, he didn't last all that long; having spent a long time teaching navigation in Harvards he converted to the Lancaster III in Aug/Sep 1943, flew 5 missions in 10 days and was shot down by a fighter while leaving the target area on the 5th mission. The aircraft exploded while falling out of the sky. 2 crew including him survived and were captured. He believed his D ring caught on a piece of the cockpit as he was blown out of it from the pilot's seat. He remembered nothing about the explosion, and regained consciousness on the ground where an Army patrol saved him from angry folk with pitchforks.

[forget]

Came across this over the weekend. Absolutely the finest ‘diary’ of a Lancaster crewman I’ve ever read. (Forty pages.)

http://www.467463raafsquadrons.com/TrueTales/eddiefosterstory.htm

……….. and lots more here.

http://www.467463raafsquadrons.com/L01Pgs/truetales.htm