Dambusters Honoured
Title
Dambusters Honoured
Description
A newspaper cutting with a photograph of Group Captain Tait, Mrs Twells, Mr Twells, Councillor Wilson and Mrs Wilson. The 617 Squadron Association were presented with a silver salver by Derbyshire County Council.
Creator
Date
1977-11-14
Language
Type
Format
One newspaper cutting from a scrapbook
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.
Contributor
Identifier
PTwellsE15070109, PTwellsE15070110
Transcription
DERBY EVENING TELEGRAPH, Monday, November 14, 1977 15
[photograph]
DAMBUSTERS HONOURED
MEMBERS of the 617 Squadron Association – the Dambusters – have had many honours conferred on them over the years, but Saturday as [sic] the first time they had been honoured by an English county when they visited Matlock.
The occasion was the 33rd anniversary of the squadron’s successful attack of the German prize battleship Tirpitz which eliminated a major threat to Russian convoys.
Twenty members of the association and 70 other guests went to the county offices at the invitation of County Council chairman, Councillor Norman Wilson, himself a former jet fighter pilot.
He presented Group Captain Willy Tait, the officer who commanded 617 Squadron and led the three attacks on the Tirpitz, with a solid silver salver, and Mr Tait handed over the 617 Squadron crest and a photograph of a painting of the Tirpitz raid.
Among the guests were Sir Denning Pearson, former Rolls - Royce chairman and in charge of the technical department during the 1939 – 45 war, Mr Eric Dyer, East Midlands Airport director and president of the Derby branch of the RAF Association, and Derbyshire’s Chief Constable, Mr Walter Stansfield.
Among the local members of the association were Mr Ernie Twells (68), of Abbott Street, Long Eaton, and his wife, Doris. Mr Twells took part in all three raids as a flight engineer.
The party had lunch at Matlock before taking up an invitation by the Duke of Devonshire to visit Chatsworth Park.
From left: Group Captain Tait, Mrs Twells, Mr Twells, Councillor Wilson and Mrs Wilson.
[photograph]
DAMBUSTERS HONOURED
MEMBERS of the 617 Squadron Association – the Dambusters – have had many honours conferred on them over the years, but Saturday as [sic] the first time they had been honoured by an English county when they visited Matlock.
The occasion was the 33rd anniversary of the squadron’s successful attack of the German prize battleship Tirpitz which eliminated a major threat to Russian convoys.
Twenty members of the association and 70 other guests went to the county offices at the invitation of County Council chairman, Councillor Norman Wilson, himself a former jet fighter pilot.
He presented Group Captain Willy Tait, the officer who commanded 617 Squadron and led the three attacks on the Tirpitz, with a solid silver salver, and Mr Tait handed over the 617 Squadron crest and a photograph of a painting of the Tirpitz raid.
Among the guests were Sir Denning Pearson, former Rolls - Royce chairman and in charge of the technical department during the 1939 – 45 war, Mr Eric Dyer, East Midlands Airport director and president of the Derby branch of the RAF Association, and Derbyshire’s Chief Constable, Mr Walter Stansfield.
Among the local members of the association were Mr Ernie Twells (68), of Abbott Street, Long Eaton, and his wife, Doris. Mr Twells took part in all three raids as a flight engineer.
The party had lunch at Matlock before taking up an invitation by the Duke of Devonshire to visit Chatsworth Park.
From left: Group Captain Tait, Mrs Twells, Mr Twells, Councillor Wilson and Mrs Wilson.
Collection
Citation
Derby Evening Telegraph, “Dambusters Honoured,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 27, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/7900.
Item Relations
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