Bob Cooke by James Seymour (nephew)
Title
Bob Cooke by James Seymour (nephew)
Description
An explanation of why James wrote about his late uncle. Also a page out of a diary kept by Bob's father.
Creator
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
One printed sheet
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
SCookeJRA1336866v10005
Transcription
How this account came to be written down.
My wife and I were visiting my parents-in-law in October 1993 and on the 23rd, my father-in-law was looking pensive; he told me that he was thinking about his elder brother, a navigator in 10 Sqn, 4 Group who had failed to return from a raid on Kassell that night exactly 50 years earlier. I knew that Bob had been killed 9 months later, on 30th June 1944. After this conversation I was determined to expand my knowledge of his life, so that I could commemorate the 50th Anniversary of his last mission, fittingly. During those months I found out a great deal about 51 Squadron, its squadron association and a certain amount about my uncle’s brief time on operations.
The following is a summary of what I found out then and since, about his service and that of his 6 fellow crew members. More recently it has been enormously satisfying for me to have been in contact with members of all the families.
This was possible through the power of the internet and the research of others, notably Lance Barron and the Late Keith Ford (the honorary historian of the 51 Sqn Association), to both of whom I am very grateful.
[page break]
Bob Cooke by James Seymour – nephew
[photograph]
My mother’s brother was John Robert Alfred Cooke, Flight Sergeant, Royal Air Force.
He was born on 3rd February 1923 and he died on 30th June 1944, aged 21.
Bob was a revered figure throughout my childhood. The photograph of him, reproduced here and above, was on my grandmother’s bedside table and I know that the name of Villers Bocage, the French town where he died, was often on her mind. But I knew nothing of his service life other than that he was a pilot and he flew the Halifax heavy bomber. I was fascinated by the small bundle of papers and his pilot’s log book that I found one day when rummaging through the boxes stored in the loft. Among them I found a journal that my grandfather had started to write the day his son was posted missing. The contents were so moving that for some years I found it impossible to read it all. Here is an exerpt: [sic]
[page break]
22nd Sept: 1944
The suspense & torture since July 1st is now ended. Bobbie died on the night of June 30th. Perhaps it was not such a shock. I seemed to know he had “passed on”. At times he was & is very near me, although he is always in my thoughts I must try & control my emotions at the mention of his name, or his photograph & all the many things at home so dear to him.
I must try & think I had a son.
I can never forget him, & would not have it otherwise, perhaps, after I have visited his grave in Normandy it may not be so acute.
I am grateful to him for the beautiful memories he has left us, I had such hopes of him, in his school days I was more pleased at his Athletics progress than I was in his other studies. I felt it was making a man of him in every sense of the word, his reserved & modest manner I knew would improve as he matured.
My wife and I were visiting my parents-in-law in October 1993 and on the 23rd, my father-in-law was looking pensive; he told me that he was thinking about his elder brother, a navigator in 10 Sqn, 4 Group who had failed to return from a raid on Kassell that night exactly 50 years earlier. I knew that Bob had been killed 9 months later, on 30th June 1944. After this conversation I was determined to expand my knowledge of his life, so that I could commemorate the 50th Anniversary of his last mission, fittingly. During those months I found out a great deal about 51 Squadron, its squadron association and a certain amount about my uncle’s brief time on operations.
The following is a summary of what I found out then and since, about his service and that of his 6 fellow crew members. More recently it has been enormously satisfying for me to have been in contact with members of all the families.
This was possible through the power of the internet and the research of others, notably Lance Barron and the Late Keith Ford (the honorary historian of the 51 Sqn Association), to both of whom I am very grateful.
[page break]
Bob Cooke by James Seymour – nephew
[photograph]
My mother’s brother was John Robert Alfred Cooke, Flight Sergeant, Royal Air Force.
He was born on 3rd February 1923 and he died on 30th June 1944, aged 21.
Bob was a revered figure throughout my childhood. The photograph of him, reproduced here and above, was on my grandmother’s bedside table and I know that the name of Villers Bocage, the French town where he died, was often on her mind. But I knew nothing of his service life other than that he was a pilot and he flew the Halifax heavy bomber. I was fascinated by the small bundle of papers and his pilot’s log book that I found one day when rummaging through the boxes stored in the loft. Among them I found a journal that my grandfather had started to write the day his son was posted missing. The contents were so moving that for some years I found it impossible to read it all. Here is an exerpt: [sic]
[page break]
22nd Sept: 1944
The suspense & torture since July 1st is now ended. Bobbie died on the night of June 30th. Perhaps it was not such a shock. I seemed to know he had “passed on”. At times he was & is very near me, although he is always in my thoughts I must try & control my emotions at the mention of his name, or his photograph & all the many things at home so dear to him.
I must try & think I had a son.
I can never forget him, & would not have it otherwise, perhaps, after I have visited his grave in Normandy it may not be so acute.
I am grateful to him for the beautiful memories he has left us, I had such hopes of him, in his school days I was more pleased at his Athletics progress than I was in his other studies. I felt it was making a man of him in every sense of the word, his reserved & modest manner I knew would improve as he matured.
Collection
Citation
James Seymour, “Bob Cooke by James Seymour (nephew),” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 13, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/43020.