Browse Items (215 total)

  • Temporal Coverage is exactly "1947"

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Peter joined the 74 Air Defence Cadet Corps at a unit at Crayford. He then volunteered to join the Royal Air Force. After a recruiting centre at Hither Green, he attended Lord’s Cricket Ground and was called up towards the end of 1943. He went to…

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Sylvia was born in Mansfield where her father was a miner and her mother had worked at Lawns Mills. She had two brothers and a sister. Sylvia was 15 when she left school to work at the hosiery mills and recalls the German manager being deported. She…

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Harry Fearns was born and lived in Barnsley South Yorkshire. He left school at 16 and joined the Prudential Insurance Company as a door to door premiums collector before joining the Royal Air Force in 1944 as a flight engineer. Following initial…

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Born on 27 December 1924 in Aigburth Liverpool, James was 15 when war broke out in Europe. He intended to join as a pilot, navigator, bomber aimer in 1943 but due to shorter waiting list and training time he trained to become a wireless operator at…

ADobleRG151117.mp3
Ron Doble grew up in London and joined the Air Training Corps and the fire watchers when war was declared. He volunteered for the Air Force when he was 18 and trained as an air gunner. He talks about the conditions in his turret and the mishaps he…

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Bernard Mabey was born in London and experienced the Blitz at first hand. He was a member of the Air Training Corps in 1941 before volunteering for the RAF. He trained as an air frame mechanic at RAF Locking. His first posting was RAF Marston Moor…

Ken Odell was a schoolboy at the beginning of the war living in Highgate and was evacuated with the school. When he was of age he volunteered for the RAF and was sent to RAF Sywell for Pilot, Navigator, Bomb Aimer evaluation. Accepted as a pilot, he…

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Bill was a wireless operator/air gunner. He joined the Home Guard in 1941 and registered for conscription to the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1943. He reported to Lord’s Cricket Ground and went to an Initial Training Wing at RAF Bridgnorth. Bill then…

ADickerV161015.mp3
Violet discusses her late husband Alan Dicker. Alan went to Leighton County High School and at 16 he joined the Air Transport Command. At 17 he volunteered for the Air Force and became a navigator after doing his basic training at Blackpool. He…

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Discusses her father's pre-war charabanc business and the pub he ran during the war. Also mentions her work in a factory in Grantham and the occasion when a possible spy took his own life when he was arrested. One day an airman and his friends…

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Ernest was born in Marylebone, London. He tells of his childhood, how he helped his father on his milk round and became a butcher's boy at Shepherds Market before serving in the Air Training Corps. He joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 17 and a…

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Gordon Atkinson lived in Flixborough, Lincolnshire. As a young boy he recalls seeing aircraft gathering over the River Humber in the evenings ready to fly out on bombing operations. In the morning he watched them come back, some with bits dropping…

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Keith was five at the start of the war and lived in a farm adjoining the airfield at RAF Skellingthorpe. He describes the airfield and how the trees were cut down in the farm belt. The airfield was closed soon after the war, bought by the City…

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Dick was from a farming background and joined the Royal Air Force in 1944. After going to Bedford, he was sent to Lord’s cricket ground. Those passing as a pilot went to a flying school near Coventry to be assessed for pilot training on a Tiger…

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At the start of the war, Doug Beasley left school at 16 to start work. Initially a member of the Air Training Corps, he was sent for aircrew selection when he became 18. There was a 12-month wait to enlist as a pilot, so he opted to become a flight…

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Originally working as a builder merchant, George Charles Culling’s town struggled constantly during the war due to the amount of bombing, which eventually forced his school to close. Finding an interest in navigation equipment, George joined the…

ALonghurstWJ180407.mp3
William Longhurst served as an engine mechanic through the Second World War. He was a member of the Hackney Wick Air Defence Cadet Corps before volunteering to enlist in the RAF after his seventeenth birthday. Following basic training at Skegness,…

ASeckerFE170815.mp3
Frances Elizabeth Secker is a lifelong resident of Feltwell. She was still at school when RAF Feltwell opened in 1937, and she remembers the Harrow being the first aircraft to arrive, followed by Wellingtons.
Elizabeth has clear memories of…

LMooreD1603117v3.pdf
Ministry of Civil Aviation personal flying log book for D Moore, covering the period from 8 November 1946 to 10 July 1949. He flew with Silver City airways from London Heathrow and Blackbushe, with Flota Area Mercante Argentina from Beunos Aires,…

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Don Crossley was born in South Emsall in 1924. He tells of his time before the war working at Upton Colliery before joining the Royal Air Force. He volunteered and trained initially as a wireless operator / air gunner. He tells of his experience at…

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Alan Mann was born in Lewisham, London and left school aged 14 to begin an engineering apprenticeship at RAF Kidbrooke and with de Havilland. He describes being bombed and what it was like in the workshops. After the war he had a career with de…

SRAFIngham19410620v070001-Audio.mp3
Mieczyslaw Maryszczak was born in Bokyivka, Ukraine and served in the Polish Army and then the Polish Air Force. An early memory of the war is throwing bread to starving Russian prisoners being marched from Lviv to Podlesice. At seventeen he was in…

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Buff file cover with green text. 'Unit: 617 Squadron, title: [...] of official file, W/C Cheshire DSO, DFC. Reference: GLC\DO\43, 15'. Reported as file containing correspondence to and from Leonard Cheshire Nov 1943 - Mar 1947

Contains personal details, release authorization on 17 July 1947 remobilisation instructions, clearance certificate, certificate of service, travel warrant and various claim forms for flight for Sergeant Langford Green.

In accordance with the…
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