Kane, William B

Title

Kane, William B

Description

Fourteen items. The collection concerns Flying Officer William B Kane DFC (b. 1921, Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs.

He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 75 and 115 Squadron.

The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Barbara McKinnell and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.

Date

2019-09-01

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

Kane, WB

Collection Items

Lancaster and Spitfire over Ely Cathedral
Looking up from street level at a flying Lancaster with Spitfire in trail over with Ely Cathedral.

Identification kindly provided by the members of the Unidentified photos of the British Isles Group.

Lancaster airborne
Distant view of airborne Lancaster with smoke issuing from starboard outer engine. Single engine fighter below to left.

Page from flying log book
Page shows two sorties in May 1945 - one for food dropping at The Hague and the other returning prisoners of war from Juvincourt.

Remembrance - poem
Twenty-two line poem. Tells of people at remembrance of those lost flying operations in Lancaster.

Page from bomb aimer's flying log book
Page for March 1945, 115 Squadron RAF Witchford. Shows six Lancaster sorties, operations to Bruchstrasse, Münster and Hamm (both last two duty not carried out - bombs jettisoned in North Sea).

German and Spanish phrase book and photographs
Three pages of issue phrase book with part of German as well as English/Spanish words.
First photograph is head and shoulders portrait of an airman wearing tunic and side cap.
Second photograph of an airman in flying suit and helmet standing in…

Letter to William Kane from the King
Regrets not being able to personally award his Distinguished Flying Cross.

Ex-mech crawls into wing, comes out with a gong
Newspaper cutting relating describing how Sergeant George Fallon became the first Canadian flight engineer to win a DFM. He cut a hole in fuselage and crawled into the wing to repair a broken oil line and switch petrol tanks.

Memories of the Lancaster crash in High Street, North Thorsby on October 4th 1943
Gives account of hearing crash and exploding ammunition. Goes on to describe scene with damage to buildings. No one was hurt on the ground. Comments on recovery of crew bodies. Mentions that aircraft was Lancaster from 100 Squadron Waltham (Grimsby)…

High Flight
Fourteen line poem. On the reverse 'the airman's prayer'.

Ladder to the Lancaster - poem
Ten verse poem. Tells of the route from enlistment to operating a Lancaster. Verses cover initial and flying training, crewing up, operational training flying, leaflet dropping, crew completion and heavy conversion unit, flying Halifax and then to…

Tower training scheme
Account of the United States' provision of limited non-combatant assistance before they entered the war. U.S. Navy trained 50 Royal Navy student pilots a month. Describes training in England and the United States. Goes on to describe training at…

Distinguished Flying Cross
Medal and ribbon in case. On reverse 'Dad's DFC for food drop over Holland 115 Squadron'.

Flying Officer William Baron Kane DFC
Service history. After training as navigator/observer and bomb aimer completed a tour as Stirling bomb aimer on 75 (NZ) Squadron. Rested on training tours and the second tour as Lancaster bomb aimer on 115 Squadron. Subsequent postings to India and…
View all 14 items

Collection Tree

  • Kane, William B