James E Linehan, MIA 1942 Wellington X3757

However, when I first saw your note relating to the search for Sgt Richards,a name change entered my thoughts as Roland as a first name is used in both Germany and France as well as in Britain.There is the possibility that the surname change might be related to a change of residence as a refugee from prewar Germany.
One of the sources made mention of a possible Jewish connection from Eastern Germany at some point, but have not had that confirmed as yet.Whilst not impossible through marriage, of course, please bear in mind that CHEETHAM is a very English surname currently with only 0.3% representation in Germany (ref. MyHeritage's surname page). Of that worldwide distribution, though, it's interesting to note that the only other non-English-speaking nations, each also quoted @ 0.3%, are Denmark and (re Nicola's preceding post) Hong Kong.

 

.... a curate's egg:


Never heard that before Steve, what does it mean?

 

Never heard that before Steve, what does it mean?

• Curate's egg - two handy definitions:"a thing that is partly good and partly bad" (Oxford Dictionaries Online)
• "something having a mix of good and bad qualities" (Wikipedia)

[*]Wikipedia's examples perhaps understate the versatility of this expression
[*]I was essentially referring to the overall disharmony of mixed messages
(ambiguous photo vs. supposed facts)

 

We think we have identified the young man whose picture I posted earlier. It is possibly one of Roland's brothers rather than Roland himself, which explains the army uniform. .
The search continues

 

Today I received definite confirmation, the photo I posted earlier of the young man in the army uniform (which turns out the be a Pioneer Corps uniform) is NOT Roland Cheetham/Richards, it is his brother Sydney Cheetham/Richards He is mentioned in the London Gazette on page 2523 on 1st June 1943.

I have a current address for him and will be writing to him, and/or waiting for my other contact to return.

Roland was registered as Roland G Cheetham on Ancestry, However, on Yorkshirebmd he is registered as Roland JEFFREY Cheetham.

 

His uniform has all the hallmarks of a WW1 officer

Yes but, just to put the record straight, the British officers' diagonal belt style did indeed carry over into WW2 - as evidenced by Jonathan Ball's new thread, He who dared - The Life and Times of Paddy Mayne (scroll down the article to where it says "BIOGRAPHY" on the right and look left)

Talking of which, are we anywhere nearer to getting a photo of the real Roland?

 

Talking of which, are we anywhere nearer to getting a photo of the real Roland?

Not as yet. Via my Rootchat contact I obtained the address for Sydney Richards' (brother of Roland) son and have written to him detailing my findings and generally making contact and asking for a photo. The letter only went a couple of days ago, so I'm currently waiting for a response. Hopefully he's not too shocked and will respond.

 

I was trying to trace my uncle and had only the records such as you have, which I obtained from a "Lost Bombers" web site, and also what people had kindly supplied on this site. I then wrote to the Air Historical Branch (RAF) at Northolt, giving the information I had and after a few weeks they wrote (I was astonished) to say what had happened to the plane and the address of the house on which it crashed. I wrote to the house and the current owner, who was 12 at the time, remembers it and also had photos. So maybe they could come up with something in your case. I also found in the National Archives in Kew the RAF station operational records for Harwell, where my uncle was based, and it gave all the details of the operation, the aircraft, what happened to them etc. Maybe in your case also?
Best wishes

 

I was trying to trace my uncle and had only the records such as you have, which I obtained from a "Lost Bombers" web site, and also what people had kindly supplied on this site. I then wrote to the Air Historical Branch (RAF) at Northolt, giving the information I had and after a few weeks they wrote (I was astonished) to say what had happened to the plane and the address of the house on which it crashed. I wrote to the house and the current owner, who was 12 at the time, remembers it and also had photos. So maybe they could come up with something in your case. I also found in the National Archives in Kew the RAF station operational records for Harwell, where my uncle was based, and it gave all the details of the operation, the aircraft, what happened to them etc. Maybe in your case also?
Best wishes

Thanks very much for commenting. I've tried the Air Historical Branch and they knew absolutely nothing. I know more than them. I've also been to the archives at Kew, that is where I've got a lot of my information already, piecing it together from their records and also paying a German researcher to look through the Bundesarchive records.

As to Lost Bombers, I got my initial aircraft & raid details from that site, but the information was lifted from RAF sources and breaks copyright and I believe has now been taken down, or something similar.

I have now narrowed it down to 2 possible crash sites, the most probable being in the north sea north of Vlieland in Holland, and the other near Wilhelmshaven. This is information that I have put together by piecing all information together and plotting it all on a map, and then by chance finding information about survivors of the other planes lost that night on the internet, thereby allowing me to take them off the plot, leaving the 2 sites mentioned earlier.

I know more than the RAF or the Air Historical Branch

And as a rider to the above, I (not the RAF or Air Historical branch) have now trace ALL 5 families of the other crew members (with help from the Stichting Missing Airmen's Memorial Foundation in Holland), I'm just waiting for final contact from a couple of people who are away or have issues at home. So all in all, with help form people on this forum and other fortuitous contacts/chance I have found out the fate of X3757 on my own, not the RAF (although there are others whom I later made contact who had previously come to the same conclusion, namely Theo Boiten author of the NightFighter diaries).

Not a bad result me thinks, and something I'm very proud of

 

A couple of more links for the mix Nicola:

• Flightglobal's PDF archive has these announcements of X3757's 4x RAF (13 May '42) and 2x RNZAF (2 Jul '42) crew-members all presumed KiA (earlier 'missing' reports, which they're said to replace, sadly not coming up in search results)
• This 7-min. 1939 Kiel Canal daylight raid reconstruction (on YouTube) has bags of well-lit internal footage to convey the best idea I've yet seen of Wimp crew dynamics

Rgds, Steve

 

Cool thanks Steve. Do you know if you can enlarge the centre pdf? I can't see the details and don't seem to be able to download the pdf.

 

Cool thanks Steve. Do you know if you can enlarge the centre pdf? I can't see the details and don't seem to be able to download the pdf.

Hmm, presumably a local problem as I'm alright Jack! But, seriously ... I'm not sure how your Mac setup compares but I've got a narrow panel with page thumbnails (L) next to a big Adobe Reader panel showing the selected page (R) - the latter initially with its search panel open and compressing the page image to its left (what I take you to mean the centre of a thumbs-page-search trio).

Simply dismissing the search panel ('Hide' button top-R) then expands the page into the space thus vacated. Another way is to delete the "?search=" and everything after it from the address. Either way, Adobe Reader's save button (top-L) and zoom control (top-centre) both work OK regardless for me.

But panic ye not because, as belt & braces, I'm going to e-mail them to you - only 786kB both told...

 

Hmm, presumably a local problem as I'm alright Jack! But, seriously ... I'm not sure how your Mac setup compares but I've got a narrow panel with page thumbnails (L) next to a big Adobe Reader panel showing the selected page (R) - the latter initially with its search panel open and compressing the page image to its left (what I take you to mean the centre of a thumbs-page-search trio).

Simply dismissing the search panel ('Hide' button top-R) then expands the page into the space thus vacated. Another way is to delete the "?search=" and everything after it from the address. Either way, Adobe Reader's save button (top-L) and zoom control (top-centre) both work OK regardless for me.

But panic ye not because, as belt & braces, I'm going to e-mail them to you - only 786kB both told...

<Whoosh> - runs hand over the top of her head to indicate that its beyond me lol. Although I did get the side panel & main image lol

 

OOh just spotted in the RAF loses pdf: Reported as KIA a P/O WS Blackadder!!!

 

<Whoosh> - runs hand over the top of her head to indicate that its beyond me lol.

Sorry - bit like trying to describe a snooker match on the radio I'm afraid - will make & send screenshots too for future reference.

Yes folks, that's my cunning plan!
Baldrick

 

Just had a phone call from a very shaken, but happy man. The letter I sent 3 weeks ago to Sydney Theodore's son regarding Sgt Richards has JUST this afternoon reached him after a tour of Wakefield as the address details were slightly wrong. Well done the Post Office for finally getting it to the correct person

Apparently he had just gone up into the attic to get a photo of Sgt Richards to put on the mantlepiece, then my letter dropped through the door.

I believe a stiff drink is in order.

Not only that, I spoke to Sophy Gardner from the Bomber Command poppy campaign & she told me that they have been inundated with requests for tickets and are having to take someone on to deal with the demand. More info will be coming soon so don't panic if you haven't heard yet

 

Finally, on this fabulous Easter weekend and 2 days before the anniversary of the loss of Wellington X3757 and all her crew on 8 April 1942, I've finally received a photo of Sgt Roland Geoffrey Richards the Aft gunner of the plane, the man of mystery, the last man I've been trying to trace, who it seems was very slightly underage when he signed up and lied about both his name and DOB.


The Crew of Wellington X3757

 

I've been sent a couple more pictures of Sgt Richards, this time in 2 of his classes.

In the 1st pic Sgt Richards is 3rd in from the left on the 2nd row from the back and on the 2nd pic he is 4th from the right 2nd row up from the front.

 

The trade ' Observer' came about during WW1, in fact in September 1915, when the Observer sat in the back seat of an aircraft, they felt deprived with the introduction of a badge for pilots only. This filtered back to the Army Council and Army Order 327 announced a badge for qualified officers. This changed to Navigator in 1942 with AMO 1019, although some of the old school prefered to carry on wearing the 'O' Brevet of the Observer.

Just rereading this again Peter. Although I've found in the ORBs that my uncle was listed as 2nd pilot, I seem to recall my father saying my uncle was a Navigator? Could he have done both pilot and navigator jobs? Or did my dad (his brother) get it wrong?

 

Hi Nicola,

I've yet to find a prescriptive source but here's a table I worked out from sources referring to those destined for Coastal Command whose paths were reckoned as follows (where AGr = Air Gunner, ABr = Air Bomber, Plt = Pilot, WOa = Wireless Operator (air), Nav = Navigator, FEr = Flight Engineer and ??? = maybe):
_________________________________ AGr ABr Plt WOa Nav FEr
________Air Crew Reception Centre Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
__________________________Grading ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
____________Initial Training Wing Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
________Technical Training School ... ... ... ... ... Yes
_____________________Radio School ... ... ... Yes Yes ...
_______________Air Gunnery School Yes ... ... Yes ... Yes
_____________Air Observers School ... Yes ... ... ... ...
____________Air Navigation School ... ... ... ... Yes ...
_School of General Reconnaissance ... ... ... ... Yes ...
Elementary Flying Training School ... ... Yes ... ... ...
___Service Flying Training School ... ... Yes ... ... ...
_____________Advanced Flying Unit ... Yes Yes ... ... ...
__________________________Pre-OTU ... ... ... Yes ??? ...
________Operational Training Unit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
____________Heavy Conversion Unit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
So separate streaming was basically introduced as soon as the aptitude test results were in but your uncle must have had some navigational training as a fighter pilot - possibly not quite up to the standard required of a bomber navigator but perhaps enough to get the crew home after a raid.

Re the observers' struggle for recognition as the true brains of their crews, vs. pilots as chauffeurs, the authoritative work on that is reckoned to be 'Observers & Navigators (Jefford) Crowood/Airlife 2001' - now out of print AFAICT but a few links here:
* ISBN 9781840372755 (The Crowood Press)
* Observers and Navigators (WorldCat) <<< best for finding a copy
* Observers And Navigators. Wholesale
* The Crowood Press

Before deciding it wasn't much use to me, because all the reviews I could find were too sketchy to inform a value judgement, I did get one seller to send me photos of the contents & index pages to scour for the topics that interested me. And partly to return the favour (as well as process the info from my eyes to my fingers as an aid to better understanding) I boiled 46MB of JPGs down into the 40kB PDF transcript attached here ... because the contents are so verbose as to give a very good overview of the book's story. This is just as well because the index consists of little else but personal names - suggesting political rhetoric vs. the impartial organisational textbook I'd prefer.

Rgds, Steve

PS: Please remember this material is copyright to Jefford but I figure posting it here is more likely to boost than harm his royalties as it's no more than the samples a lot of e-tailers see fit to dangle as carrots in lieu of customers being able to browse their wares like in a real bookshop.

STOP PRESS: On the opposite tack, "Flight Lieutenant Albert Smith, who has died aged 94, was a navigator awarded an immediate DFC for flying his damaged aircraft back to England after his pilot had been killed by anti-aircraft fire." (see his Telegraph obituary)