The last flight of Lancaster RF154 (AS-B)

Discussion in 'The War In The Air' started by Ron Goldstein, Jan 30, 2012.

  1. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Cliff

    I thank you for your kind remarks.

    The decision to first post Jack's story was never an easy one but the warm response from forum members such as yourself, has, in my opinion, fully justified my actions.

    As you have only just spotted this posting, I thought you might find this also of interest:
    Durnbach War Cemetery
    Comment #46

    Best regards

    Ron
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 5, 2019
  2. Fred Wilson

    Fred Wilson Member

    Rated this Topic a solid 5 Stars, Ron. (I think only the third time I have done so.)
    Thank you ever so much. Nicely done.
     
  3. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I have just added some photos to the Gallery titled Crash Site
    They show Mike with the local kids football team
    The crash scene from the road
    Witnesses of the crash with debris that has been recovered over the years
    [sharedmedia=gallery:images:22741]
    [sharedmedia=gallery:images:22739]
    [sharedmedia=gallery:images:22738]
     
  4. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I have now added a few pics to the Gallery titled "Crash Site"
    [sharedmedia=gallery:albums:439]
     
  5. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    After Mike's recent trip to Kammerstein, back home in the UK he and his sister visited the National Memorial Arboretum for a service of commemoration of memorial stones that have been laid there and also 70 years of the RAF Association.

    Note the AJEX marker.

    Ron
     

    Attached Files:

  6. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I never fail to be amazed at the way that life occasionally throws up the most unlikely of coincidences.

    Yesterday I received two e-mails from my nephew concerning his late father.

    The first one was to tell me that he had successfully arranged the placing of a memorial bench at the NMA (National Memorial Arboretum) in Staffordshire complete with a plaque inscribed:
    In loving and eternal memory of Sergeant Jacob (Jack) Goldstein. RAFVR 166 Squadron, who gave his life on 16th March 1945 to save mankind from tyranny. SHALOM

    The second e-mail was to tell me that his German contact in Kammerstein had tracked down an Allied arial photo taken just weeks after the Lancaster's crash and clearly showing the result of the explosion caused by the bomb that was still aboard. His contact says that the village in the lower part of the picture is Schattenhof near Haag.

    Both photos are shown below.

    Ron
     

    Attached Files:

    CL1 likes this.
  7. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Ron
    thank you for posting

    regards
    Clive
     
  8. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    Ron,

    Such a wonderful Tribute to read regarding your Brother and the Crew.

    Regards
    Tom
     
  9. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Yesterday, the 11th of November 2013, was Armistice Day and Jack's son Michael was at the NMA (National Memorial Arboretum) for the annual service.
    http://www.thenma.org.uk/about-us/about-us/welcome/

    The service, held in driving rain and attended by so many that viewing screens had to be set up for those unable to get into the main arena, gave Mike a chance to lay some poppies at the memorials he has set up to his father's memory.

    I show below some of the photos taken on the day.

    Lest we forget !

    Ron
     

    Attached Files:

  10. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

  11. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Tim

    Thanks for displaying the extra link.

    Ron
     
  12. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    This evening i was delighted to receive an e-mail from Mike telling me that he has at long last received his father's Bomber Command Clasp, some sixty eight years after the end of hostilities in ww2.

    Lest we forget !

    Ron
     

    Attached Files:

    Son of POW-Escaper likes this.
  13. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Canuck

    The link supplied by you on Post #30 now throws up this message.

    Could you please check it out ?

    Ron
     

    Attached Files:

  14. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    In February 2015 I received, completely out of the blue, a letter from Jack Etherington the son of "Lefty Etherington.
    "Lefty" was a former crew member of the Lancaster bomber on which my late brother Jack Goldstein was killed on the 16th March 1945.

    As a direct result of receiving this letter I Googled "Lefty Etherington" and this threw up a book written by Martin Bowman entitled : Bomber Command, Reflections of War: Armegeddon (27th September 1944-May 1940), published on 12/7/13 and offered for sale by Amazon.
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LOUT07Y?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_

    I was sufficiently interested to purchase a Kindle copy of the book and read with much interest a section dealing with the actual shooting down of the plane over Nurnberg and the death of my brother.

    As I read this particular chapter I was rapidly drawn to the conclusion that I had read much of it before and subsequent checking confirmed that large sections of the story had been quoted directly, word for word, from a story written on the BBC People's War website by my nephew Dr.Michael Goldstein CBE who was Jack Goldstein's son.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/90/a8452190.shtml
    The same story was also largely quoted from in his jointly authored book "Three Lives in Education: Reflections of an Anglo-Jewish Family" (Susy Stone, Jean Lawrence and Michael Goldstein; Clio Publishing; revised first edition 2011; ISBN 978-0-9556983-5-4)

    As an example of how the original text was copied see the following section of text taken from Michael's story on the BBC website:

    "But Ted Hull’s story of his capture is the most traumatic and relevant to this story. When he was captured on the morning after the crash, he was taken to a nearby camp where he was interrogated by two SS officers for about an hour. They accused him of being Jewish and coming from ‘a Jewish squadron’. He was told: ‘Your mid-upper gunner is a Jew, and so are you”. Evidently, the German authorities had identified my father as Jewish from his name (he didn’t change his name when enlisting as some other Jewish men did) and also from his identity tags which gave the person’s religion. Ted was in a bad way, but was interrogated three times along the same lines. He cannot recall how long he was in that camp, and was clearly in a state of shock as well as suffering from his untreated injuries. In his mind he thought he saw my father amongst a small group of men being taken by armed guards to some pits, which he took to be mass graves."

    Now see the same event as published in Martin Bowman's book.
    "When he was captured on the morning after the crash, Ted Hull was taken to a nearby camp where he was interrogated by two SS officers for about an hour. They accused him of being Jewish and coming from ‘a Jewish squadron’. He was told: ‘Your mid-upper gunner is a Jew, and so are you”. Evidently, the German authorities had identified Jack Goldstein as Jewish from his name (he didn’t change his name when enlisting as some other Jewish men did) and also from his identity tags which gave the person’s religion. Ted was in a bad way, but was interrogated three times along the same lines. He cannot recall how long he was in that camp, and was clearly in a state of shock as well as suffering from his untreated injuries. In his mind he thought he saw Jack Goldstein among a small group of men being taken by armed guards to some pits, which he took to be mass graves."

    After reading Martin Bowman's book in it's entirety I looked in vain for any acknowledgment by the author of the original source of the story about the loss of Lancaster Bomber RF 154.

    In addition to the matter dealt with above there was a factual mistake made concerning a letter received by Jack's widow but this has been adequately dealt with by Michael in his recent review of the book on the Amazon publications site, shown below.





    "I am sure a very large number of people are most grateful to Martin Bowman for documenting so many of the personal events of Bomber Command operations which are so important to survivors and their descendants. In this particular book, he makes two references to my late father, Jacob (Jack) Goldstein, who was killed in action on a mission over Nurnberg on 16 March 1945 (Lancaster RF154 AS-B flying from Kirmington). Both references take material and direct text from my jointly authored book "Three Lives in Education: Reflections of an Anglo-Jewish Family" (Susy Stone, Jean Lawrence and Michael Goldstein; Clio Publishing; revised first edition 2011; ISBN 978-0-9556983-5-4), and readers may wish to read the original to gain greater insight and details (this information is not given by Martin Bowman). Perhaps I might also point out, for the record, that one of the quotations is materially incorrect; it describes the receipt of the telegram on 17 March 1945 giving notification of my father's death (actually, the fact that he was missing) as being received by Fegele (known as 'Fanny'), who was actually Jack's mother (my paternal grand-mother), whereas the telegram was sent to Jack's wife, my mother, Sarah (known as Sadie). The photograph shows my mother and father in July 1944.
    But this error should not detract from the more general service which this series of WW2 books by Martin Bowman provides."


    Ron
     
  15. geoff501

    geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

    An insight into how prolific authors work! Welcome to the age of the internet.
     
  16. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Geoff501

    If I may be vulgar, incidents like this leave me considerably peed off :(

    If authors can go to the trouble of finding, selecting text and then copying and pasting into their masterpieces, I consider the least they should do is to acknowledge the original source !

    As long as I am here to do so I intend to name and shame the offendors.

    Ron
     
  17. Fred Wilson

    Fred Wilson Member

    Martin Bowman does a good job of crediting sources Ron. We are all human, we all make mistakes.
    Probably just a sad omission on his part. Ask to have it updated in the next revision.
     
  18. Peter Clare

    Peter Clare Very Senior Member

    Ron, I can sympathise with you on this subject.


    I know this will bring a smile to one members face, but who cares......

    It took me well over 20 years to research the loss of my father, it was the days before computers so all the work was carried out with pen, paper, telephone and lots of detective work. Need I say that it was a labour of love, and that my late mother wished to know what happened to her husband before she passed away.

    A current member of this forum, no names, he knows who he is, has cut and pasted the details of my fathers loss and if not all, most of my posts re 120 Squadron losses during WW2 on to a web site that effectively replaces the now defunct 'Lost Bombers' site. I was not asked permission if my work could be used in such a way and, I am given NO credit for the work although he does mention this forum.

    At least the BBC gives me credit on their 'Peoples War' site

    Regards and keep up the good work

    Peter.
     
  19. Fred Wilson

    Fred Wilson Member

    Peter that was me, and I am absolutely sorry for the offense and do and did apologize,
    But #1 the entirety WAS deleted leaving ONLY links to your articles.
    But #2: What if your website articles go down?
    But #3: YOU yourself can edit the lhttp://lostaircraft.com/database.php?lang=en loss record.

    It would honour us all if you would insert your information in the loss record. Mark it copyrighted.
    - then other crew member family can add their information.

    All that is left there is common public knowledge from http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx

    Steps are being taken to set up a foundation that will preserve that website for perpetuity. Hopefully this http://ww2talk.com
    - and http://ww2f.com too. RAF Commands, 12Oclock high and commandosupremo etc are also on wish lists.
     
  20. Peter Clare

    Peter Clare Very Senior Member

    I have no intention of joining the lost aircraft site. its very much the same as Lost Bombers. Other peoples hard work. If my web info goes down I do not mind as the loss details and my fathers log books will be donated to the RAF Museum, Hendon, when the time arrives.


    As far as I am concerned, enough said.
     
    4jonboy and Fred Wilson like this.

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