Wagner, Henry Wolfe

Title

Wagner, Henry Wolfe
H W Wagner

Description

15 items. Two oral history interviews with Sergeant Henry Wolfe Wagner (1923 - 2020, 1604744 Royal Air Force), his memoirs, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 51 Squadron from RAF Snaith and became a prisoner of war. He was demobbed in 1946 and returned to education where he remained until his retirement.

The collection was catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.

Date

2016-05-04

Publisher

IBCC Digital Archive

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

Wagner, HW

Collection Items

Henry Wagner's life story. Part two
Hand written by Henry, Part 2 picks up his story, post war teaching at a grammar school near Wokingham, married, two children and having just bought their house. He continues to cover his life in great detail through into retirement, the last entry…

Henry Wagner's life story. Part one
Hand written by Henry, Part 1 covers his early life and time at university. It goes on to cover in some detail his time in the RAF, his time training in South Africa conversion to the Halifax and operations on 51 Squadron. It also covers his time as…

An account of the briefing for an operation to Essen
An extremely detailed account of the No 51 Squadron briefing for the operation to Essen on 28/29 November 1944 by Henry. It includes all the specialist officers as well as the Station Commander's brief. It also includes Henry's crew, Station and…

Reflections on your fate having baled out
The reflection was inspired by the account of the murder of an airman on initial capture having baled out over Germany in 1944-45.

Navigators log
The log was compiled by Henry on a flight in Halifax 728 letter B from no 1652 HCU RAF Marston Moor around England and Wales.

Henry Wagner's prisoner of war Record Card
Contains very little information other than that entered when initially issued. Has his photograph and a print of one finger.

Henry Wagner visits the graves of his crew
This account was written by Henry for publication in 'The Digger'. Henry recounts that in 2010 he became aware that the National Lottery were awarding grants to veterans to visit places with special memories for them, he applied and was successful.…

Engagement reports
A series of Luftwaffe engagement reports, some in German, some translated concerning the attacks on a four engined bomber in the early hours of 18 December 1944 probably Henry Wagner's Halifax.

Engagement report
English translation of a German nightfighter combat report for 18 December 1944.

Crash map
Map of part of Holland, close to the German border and the Ruhr, showing the crash sites of a Halifax on the 18 December 1944 and a Manchester on 13 March 1942.

Reflection
Reflections by Henry Wagner of the short time he was trying to evade capture having baled out of his fatally damaged aircraft.

Luckenwalde
Two photographs, the first captioned 'Arrival of U.S.A. at Luckenwalde' shows large numbers of men surrounding a few U.S. soldiers. The second captioned 'Arrival of Russian soldiers at Luckenwalde', shows small group of soldiers one with an accordion…

Henry Wagner and crew members
Four photographs of Henry and three of his fellow crew members, Warrant Officer W A Bates the pilot, Sergeant Henry Wagner the navigator, both in uniform, Sergeant L Roberts the bomb aimer , in civilian clothes and Sergeant J Jones, the wireless…

Interview with Henry Wolfe Wagner. Two
Henry’s aircraft was shot down in Holland when the fuel tank exploded on the starboard wing. Henry was the only member of the crew to bale out. Their target had been the armament works in Duisburg. Henry drifted across the River Maas behind German…

Interview with Henry Wolfe Wagner. One
Henry Wolfe Wagner was born in Ireland. The family moved to England when he was young and settled near Reading. Henry attended Reading University for two years, joining the University Air Squadron. He then volunteered for the RAF and began training…
View all 15 items

Collection Tree

  • Wagner, Henry Wolfe