A young man walking backwards

Title

A young man walking backwards
A synopsis of the life of George Buchanan Thomson

Description

Starts with description of early childhood, growing up and attending school in the Glasgow area. Having been in the air training corps, he volunteers for the RAF. Briefly covers his training before joining 15 Squadron flying Lancaster from RAF Mildenhall. Describes how his aircraft was shot down by a German fighter on his 19th operation to Frankfurt. He mentions attempts to evade capture and being sent to Stalag Luft 7 in Silesia. He took part in the long walk back to Germany and was liberated by Russians. He mentioned travelling to Germany to visit the graves of his pilot and mid upper gunner who were killed. He continues by describing life after the war, including his career in banking and his involvement as an elder in the Church of Scotland.

Creator

Temporal Coverage

Language

Format

Five page printed document

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.

Contributor

Identifier

BThomsonGBThomsonGBv1

Collection

Citation

G B Thomson, “A young man walking backwards,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 13, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/51404.