RCAF Wellington Pilot, 1942 Egypt - how to find details?
 

My great uncle, Frank Morgan, was a Pilot Officer for the RCAF in WW2. I'm trying to nail down the models of planes he flew, and which squadron he was in.

He died piloting a Vickers Wellington returning from a raid on Tobruk on July 13, 1942. Their fuel tanks were shot up during the (successful) raid, and the plane was blown off course by adverse weather. He ordered the crew to bail out, but insisted on staying with the plane to try to bring it down safely. The plane crashed north of Cairo, and he did the next day in #13 Scottish General Hospital from injuries sustained in the crash.

He'd been shot down once before. On October 20, 1941, his memoirs say the crew he was on had just dropped a 4,000-pound bomb on Bremen, Germany when they were attacked by night fighters. They had to ditch in the North Sea and spent the night in a dinghy before being rescued. I assume this was a Wellington as well, but the book by my cousin doesn't call that out.

There's a photo of him in the book standing in front of a Fleet Finch, which is a plane I hadn't heard of before.

Anyway, given the dates and targets, and the fact that he was flying for the RCAF and definitely in a Wellington on his final flight, anyone know how I can determine which squadron he was flying for? I'd like to find more info about his service. Right now I just have a couple of pages in my Canadian cousin's family memoir.

Any pointers on how to find more details on this would be appreciated! Online resources, forums, etc. Thanks!

Skyray,

Here's a link that may help you in your quest - the record of his burial in the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery at Heliopolis:

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/c...klin-benedict/

The name is slightly different, but the date matches. He was with 38 Squadron:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._38_Squadron_RAF

PS The Fleet Finch was one of the RCAF's basic trainers, so the picture you have would have been taken in Canada, during his training.

Get the 38Sqn Operational Record Books from the National Archives at Kew: most are available as monthly reports online for a modest fee. A lot of ORBs list aircraft/crews and often code letters by daily raid/sortie.

Oh and Flight Archive may give you an idea of when he passed through training etc: pre-WW2 the magazine listed postings and unit movements. Common name unfortunately, but worth a look.

Ditto London Gazette, which will have promotions and details of medal awards etc. Finally, once you do have all of that together you should be able to piece a semblance of his service together.

And have you requested his service record? As NOK you can get it easily, but I'd guess he won't be covered by RAF Cranwell if he's Canadian.

Skyray,

I've just done a bit more research. For RCAF records, use this link, where you have to agree to a Privacy Notice:

https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/transp....aspx?type=MIL

You will then be shown a page titled "Request for military service files of former members of the Canadian Armed Forces after 1919" where you can enter your details and the details of your great uncle.

Skyray - bonne chance

A/c was HF868/Q.

The National Archives records you need are AIR 27/405/1, 399/13 and 399/14 to cover July but the previous months are available.

On the night of 20/21 October 1941 your man was flying Wellington Ic Z8891 of 99 Sqn. On their return from Bremen they ditched off Lowestoft and were picked up by a trawler.

I've a vague recollection that the RAF may have kept records for RCAF, RAAF etc. personnel who were posted to RAF units. It would be worth seeing what his RCAF record says before gambling £30 on an application for his RAF record https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military...-elses-records

In a similar vein...
 

I've not tried to research US casualties, but if you have crew names you could check the date via https://www.abmc.gov/database-search or the US National Archives https://www.archives.gov/research/mi...rmy-casualties. For personnel records try https://www.archives.gov/personnel-r...tary-personnel

Circumstances of the loss of HF868/Q:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....616168b201.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a37219fe15.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fb5923e0e7.jpg

Wow, I've had a busy week and just got a chance to think "Oh, I should pop over to pprune and see if anyone had any tips on finding the info." Didn't expect to come back to such a wealth of information!

Thank you so much, India Four Two, Quemeford, and Innominate! I really appreciate the effort you put in to researching this, and the pointers on where to look for the information. I wonder if I can find the appendix with the report from Sgt. Mole referenced in the documents Quemeford shared in the previous post. Was that from the National Archives reports you referenced above?

Again, thank you all!

Skyray, the report excerpts all came from the sources I quoted (National Archives). By the look of it the 'Sgt Mole' report is the first one I posted: there doesn't seem to be a report other than that in the Appendices. However the Appendices do give details of the planning of that one raid, as well as others. And obviously they also will have detail of the daily flights your relative made (Main part of the ORB). I would post you the copies I have but they are too large for my email limit! Annoying, but £10 total for 100MB of download is a good deal.

I'd also give the 99 Sqn records a go. There should be a casualty pack for this accident at the National Archives too.

ORBs at TNA website have a readable preview now, so you can check if it is anything of interest there.