Jack Whalley’s Royal Air Force Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book

LWhalleyJ1113651v1.pdf

Title

Jack Whalley’s Royal Air Force Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book

Description

Jack Whalley’s Royal Air Force Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book from 9th July 1941 until 10th October 1952. Initial training at No. 9 Air Observers School as an air observer, navigator, air gunner and bomb aimer. Further training as navigator at 6 Operational Training Unit. In March 1942 posted to 1401 Meteorological Flight for operations where he carried out weather observations over the North Sea.
In August 1942, his section of 1401 Meteorological Flight became 521 Squadron. May 1943 saw 521 Squadron once again designated as 1401 Meteorological Flight, only to revert back to 521 Squadron in September.
Posted to No. 3 School of General Reconnaissance from October 1943. In May 1944 he was posted to No. 47 Air Navigation School, Queenstown in South Africa undertaking staff navigator training which finished in September 1944. From October 1945 posted to Empire Air Navigation School for further staff navigator training.
During 1951 and 1952 attended 18 Reserve Flying School for navigator training.

Served at RAF Penrhos, RAF Thornaby, RAF Bircham Newton, RAF Docking, RAF Squires Gate, Queenstown, RAF Shawbury, RAF Fairoaks.

Aircraft flown were Anson, Blenheim, Defiant, Botha, Hudson, Mosquito, Hampden, Wellington, Halifax, Tiger Moth.

With 1401 Flight and 521 Squadron he flew 117 day long range meteorological reconnaissance operations over the North Sea mainly to Position 6 but also to Positions 3, 5 and 9 (the latter which included Lille, Prestskjaer and Egero). These were known as Rhombus duties. He also flew one photographic reconnaissance and meteorological photography (PAMPA) operation covering Romilly, Tours and Le Havre.
His pilots for these operations were: Sergeants Pethick and Ayrton, Flight Sergeants Farrell and Workman, Warrant Officer Garthwaite, Pilot Officers Price, Mottram, Hatton and Spencer, Flying Officers Marshall, De Jace, Mascall and Bispham, Flight Lieutenant Williams and Squadron Leader Braithwaite.

On the 18 Aug 1942 he was attacked by JU-88 which was observed to hit the sea.

On three occasions his aircraft crashed on take-off. These were on 1 November 1942, 19 November in which he was slightly injured, and 30 January 1943.

Language

Format

One booklet

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

LWhalleyJ1113651v1

Collection

Citation

Great Britain. Royal Air Force, “Jack Whalley’s Royal Air Force Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 16, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/47885.

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