Tomaselli - Air Force Lives : a Guide for Family Historians

FAMILY HISTORY FROM PEN & SWORD

Birth, Marriage and Death Records

David Annal and Audrey Collins

Tracing Your Channel Islands Ancestors

Marie-Louise Backhurst

Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors

Rachel Bellerby

Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors

Richard Brooks and Matthew Little

Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors

Robert Burlison

Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

Kathy Chater

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors

Mark Crail

Napoleonic Lives

Carole Divall

Tracing Your Army Ancestors

Simon Fowler

A Guide to Military History on the Internet

Simon Fowler

Tracing Your Northern Ancestors

Keith Gregson

Tracing Your Dead Ancestors

Celia Heritage

Your Irish Ancestors

Ian Maxwell

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

Ian Maxwell

Tracing Your London Ancestors

Jonathan Oates

Tracing Your Tank Ancestors

Janice Tait and David Fletcher

Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors

Phil Tomaselli

Tracing Your Secret Service Ancestors

Phil Tomaselli

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors

Stephen Wade

Tracing Your Police Ancestors

Stephen Wade

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors

Rosemary Wenzerul

Fishing and Fishermen

Martin Wilcox

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors

Sue Wilkes

Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors

Sue Wilkes

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by

PEN & SWORD FAMILY HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Phil Tomaselli 2013

ISBN 978 1 84884 743 9

eISBN 978 1 78337 837 1

The right of Phil Tomaselli to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Palatino and Optima by

Phoenix Typesetting, Auldgirth, Dumfriesshire

Printed and bound in England by

CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen &

Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Pen &

Sword Discovery, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime,

Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Leo

Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk

Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A s ever, I owe a great deal of thanks to a number of individuals who have helped me with the researching of this book. Andrew Salmond Smith introduced me to the story of his grandfather, David Prosser Hepburn, and the mystery of his Military Medal, and kindly allowed me to reproduce his photograph; Will Hepburn was very helpful and gave me additional information about his fathers life, as did his grandson, David Hepburn; Margaret Gregory kindly allowed me to use the research that I did for her into her uncle, Vic Reid; Martyn Ford-Jones, Official Historian of 15 Squadron, generously permitted me access to his own researches and provided the photographs; the late Martin Kender introduced me to Janet Boddy (formerly Pegden) and Peter Hart of the Imperial War Museum gave me access to the interview hed done with her; Rosemary Horrell showed me the papers of her late stepfather, Group Captain Bone, many years ago and sparked my long interest into both his fascinating career and aviation generally; Roy Hemington at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission provided information from its records; veteran medal researcher Paul Baillie kindly found the medal citation for Wilfred Beale and Bill Clelands crew in the AIR 2 records; the late Guy Blampied provided me with transcripts of his Russia diaries, photographs of the campaign and gave me much information in the course of several telephone calls to him at his home on Guernsey. Dr John Salt helpfully trawled records in Horsham for information on the ME 109 shot down by Guy Marsland. Ian Piper kindly provided a photograph of Tom Beale. Barbara Chambers showed me her mothers and fathers service records and photographs and introduced me to her brother, Colin, who, with the benefit of long RAF service himself, was able to pass on to me many of the stories his father had told him. Helen Cleland introduced me to her husband, Bill, who sadly passed away during the writing of this book and to his bomb-aimer and lifetime friend, Jack Watson, who loaned me his log book and memoir (from which Ive quoted extensively). The staff at The National Archives have been, as ever, friendly, professional and knowledgeable.

My wife Francine has had to live with my interest in some of the people featured in the book for well over twenty years and has accompanied me on visits to archives, museums, obscure airfields and monuments, the French coast and the Somme battlefields carrying out research without a word of complaint. I could not have done it without her and am pleased to be able to dedicate this work to her.

ABBREVIATIONS AND WEBSITES

List of Abbreviations

Useful Websites

INTRODUCTION

W hen I was first asked to write this book, I wasnt, initially, sure I wanted to do it. Id spent many years researching RAF records generally for my book Tracing your Air Force Ancestors (Pen and Sword, 2007) and wasnt sure there was much I could add. Once I thought about it a bit more, however, I realised that some of the people Id mentioned in that book deserved a more in-depth treatment if their stories were to be adequately told, and I had several other people Id started researching whose Air Force lives deserved more work. The range of people represented covers, I hope, many of the aspects of the air forces from before the First World War through to the 1970s, giving interesting examples of the types of people who served and the jobs that they did. By using a wide range of sources I hope also to show other researchers the kind of stories that can be built up and I would urge anyone who is researching an Air Force ancestor to write them up for the benefit of others as well. If nothing else, I trust the stories of the men and women here are interesting and informative and as much a pleasure to read as they have been to research and write.