Research & pet projects - what are you doing; how's it progressing?

A collective volume/miscellany on Operations Plunder and Varsity, to be published late in 2024, and in time for the 80-year anniversary 2025. It will be a German-language volume, in cooperation with the Municipal Archives of Wesel. One of my articles will focus on background stories, information and photos of men of both sides who were killed in March 1945. Contributions to this particular aspect would be welcome. So far, the survivors told their stories - but quite another story are the names, biographies and the fate of those who lost their life.

The book will definitely materialize. What we are considering, too, is a "virtual exhibition" and an online presentation of content. We will start discussing this project early next year. A two year run-up should give us plenty of time to create something unique. In my view, it should be bilingual - i.e. German/English.

 

I laugh when I see that I said my book was almost done a year ago. Well, it was, but my one man publisher was too busy to begin layout so I went off and .... Wrote more. The book will contain varying levels of detail about Archers in action in each month of 1945 from Jan to VE Day. I'm just going back to write something short about op Blockbuster in which they didn't have a big role.

I have a hard deadline of April now.

ps Just found in the Canadian archives the full set of photos of the roof addition, and also some very dramatic photos of a knocked out Archer or two.

 

Another article I am researching right now will focus on the medical arrangements set up prior to Plunder and Varsity - the whole chain of evacuation from the frontline east of the Rhine all the way back to the British General Hospitals established at Venray, plus US Evacuation Hospitals as far back as Mönchengladbach.

 

Hi alberk,

You may already have this information to hand however I thought I would post it in case it is of help.

The following is a list of personnel from 716 Light Composite Company RASC (6th Airborne) who are listed as having been killed during the period 24/03/1945-28/03/1945 (when they left the area)


Driver Harry Baker - 24/03/1945 - T14665070. Wakefield Council provide a small amount of information and a photograph, the council themselves, or family details may provide a lead to contacting for further informationhttps://www.wakefield.gov.uk/librar...-remember-them/stories/pontefract/harry-baker

Driver A Pickering - 24/03/1945 - No Info

Driver A.C Shelton - 24/03/1945 - No Info

Driver D.A. Allen - 24-03-1945 - photographs of his grave state suggest he died on the 24th of March however the 716 LCC reminiscence document lists his death as 09/05/1945, I believe it is more likely the grave date and following statement are correct. “Allen was killed during Operation Varsity and was given a field burial in Hamminkeln, Germany. He was reburied in the Reichswald War Cemetery on 13 December 1946”

Driver E Morris - 25/03/1945 – No Info

Driver V.S. Coles - 27/03/1945 - Killed by landmine whilst collecting containers and equipment. I believe we have previously spoken about this, but I can provide more information if need be as it is well documented in the war diary linked below.


The diary 716th Light Composite Company, RASC also states on the 24th that “While unloading Glider 1 O.R. was shot through the back by sniper and killed outright”, this presumably refers to Baker, Pickering, or Shelton, although to whom I have not been able to determine.

The diary also provides information on some glider pilots that were killed but does not provide any names (something I am looking into at present as I am attempting to determine the pilots and crews for all 12 of the RASC Hamilcar’s).


Apologies for any omission if I have accidently missed anyone off this list.

I hope this is of use, however, suspect you may already have more information than I do on this.

 

Hi S Hayward, thank you very much - let's keep in touch on this, any detail is welcome. The photo of Driver Allen would be of interest. As to Driver Morris, he died of wounds as a POW in a German field hospital in Rhede.

I also have other names on my list of RASC personnel KIA - but maybe they were not all 716 Coy:
Allen D A Dvr 24/03/1945 buried MR 199509 Vöckingsweg/Autobahn

Baker H Dvr 24/03/1945 D/W buried first Margraten, later Venray NL

Bradley J CK Dvr 26/03/1945 buried MR 139421 Bislich

Coles V S Dvr 27/03/1945 buried MR 191474 n/w Witzenskath

Dyer D Dvr 24/03/1945 buried MR 188492 Hagemannshof

Jackson F W (5 Para Bde HQ) Cpl 24/03/1945 buried MR 188492 Hagemannshof

Mc Ewen P Maj 24/03/1945 buried MR 189480 Köpenhof/Bislicher Str.

Morris E J R DVR 24/03/1945 D/W (POW) buried Rhede

Pickereing A Dvr 24/03/1945 no known grave/Groesbeek Memorial

Shelton A. Dvr. 24/03/1945 buried MR 160489 Jansenkathweg/Ellern

Roberts A E Capt 24/03/1945 buried MR 153490 Ellern

 

Hi alberk,

Will definitely keep in touch on this,

If Driver Morris was POW its possible he was on CN 276, as all but 2 personnel from that glider were thought to have ended up as POW's.

A E Roberts may also have been with 716 LCC, although am not 100% certain: there is a Paradata page on him that refers to him as being with both RASC HQ and 716 LCC Link:Arthur E Roberts | ParaData . many of the photographs on that page come from J.B. Roberts who was A. E.'s friend, I am in contact with J.B's son so will pop him an email and see if I can get some more information, for you.

There is a chance that Baker had the nick name (lofty), although I did not record a citation for this and it therefore may refer to a different person with the same initial H. and surname Baker (just interesting I had this as a margin note on Bakers name).

Somebody with the surname Pickering is listed on one of the glider loading tables as: Dcf/DE Clrg

I will look into the others too, a couple of those names also ring a bell so fingers crossed.

Lastly and somewhat unrelated, if you have all of the KIA names listed in the format: Name -> Date -> Grid Ref, location name, it shouldn't be to difficult to convert these into a single map using the grid references in QGIS.

BR,
SH

 

Since 2014 I have written several versions of the history of the 67th Field Regt, together with the Wartime Letters of Lt H N (Bill) Beadle and Major DCL Shepherd MC.
Nothing that I have written has been trashed but no publishers have come forward to publish it at their own risk.
Commentator's have been enthusiastic about my primary sources but nothing has ever come back from suggested parties.
It seems doomed to sit on my shelf until I go to join my ancestors as I don't have the money to pay for a publication.
Not only this but I don't want to publish a heavily detailed academic history but something resembling what the men wrote themselves.
I also want to use photos from their albums. This all adds to costs.

 

Coming from an engineering/sales /marketing background I constantly ask myself, "who is going to read this book?".
The more experience I gain about "authoring" a book the less I like the idea.
It seems the publishers merely want to fit the narrative into their preconceived and pre programmed context of what a book should be.
One has only to read books published over the years since WW2 to see how they are configured to fit the various literary fashions.
I want My book to be exactly that, My Book not the product of mass media or academic experts or worse, computerised artificial intelligence.
The end game question is now: Who is going to read this book, why and just how many will buy it ?
That is where I put it back on my shelf and find something else to do.

 

A few years ago, a happenstance finding of an old Christmas card:

gave awareness of a previously unknown cousin who had been killed in the War ..... but never spoken about for not unusual reasons of rawness.

Encouraged by other relatives keen to learn more about him ..... herewith a synopsis of research so far.

Flight Sergeant John James Martin RAFVR No
 1040315 was the navigator aboard 83 (Pathfinder) Squadron Avro Lancaster Mk III JB412, Callsign OL-B, that took off from RAF Wyton, near Huntingdon at 00:19am on Saturday 29 January 1944 for operations over Berlin.

While outbound, it was attacked by a JU 88C night-fighter of II./NJG 3 piloted by the accomplished Hauptmann Gerhard Raht and controlled by the radar station “Star” based at Lütjenhorn.

At 02:37am the Lancaster exploded in the air. I suspect the involvement of Schräge Musik. Wreckage was spread over a radius of 1.5 miles just north of the village of Varnæs, Denmark. Twenty‐two year old Flight Sergeant J.J. Martin (who came from Carnforth), 21 year old Sergeant Thomas Kinnoch McCash RAFVR (the Flight Engineer from Glasgow) and 21 year old Flight Sergeant John Robert Tree RAAF (an Air Gunner from Michelton, Queensland, Australia) perished as a result.

All three were subsequently buried at Aabenraa, their graves now attended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and some local Danes. Aabenraa is on the Southeast coast of Jutland, about 15 miles North of the border with Germany. This is his gravestone:



since visited by one family member. Frustratingly, he had worked in Denmark for a year before we learned of cousin James and yet another had unwittingly holidayed within 5 miles in the 1980s.

The other 4 members of the crew managed to parachute to safety and became prisoners of war.

It was Flight Sergeant Martin’s 30th operation. In other circumstances, this could well have been his last before being ‘rested,’ but he had only recently joined 83 Squadron from 61 Squadron and is believed to have signed on for a sequential tour of up to 50 operations.

There were no available family photographs, but an image of Flight Sergeant John Tree was found from a niece, then resident in California. He is identified standing sixth from right on the third row. It was otherwise unannotated, but a rare old photo of Flight Sergeant JJ Martin's sister (also long deceased, but attributed with a strong sibling resemblance) strikingly indicated he was the airman standing 5th from right on the third row.


Whist unconfirmed, I think this is an 83 Squadron (flight?) group from late 43 and JB412's pilot - Pilot Officer W Simpson - may be the officer seated, second row 5th from right.

Simpson landed on the tiles of a house beside the Skoletoften 12 telephone exchange in Blans and injured his forehead falling from the roof. He was taken to the exchange and his wound dressed. No Dane present knew English. Simpson tried to persuade them to help him escape, but he had already been seen and at 09:20m, two German soldiers arrived on a motorcycle and picked him up.

JJ Martin was held as 'Missing in Action' until November 1944. Flight magazine of 24 September 1942 (Service Aviation p350) suggested that he may have been reported missing before (Casualty Communique 156) at a time when elements of 61 Squadron had been briefly detached to Coastal Command, but this is still to be followed up; any information appreciated.

The Lancaster Guardian of 24 November 1944 reported his death and that he was originally from Carlisle, but had been educated at Penrith and Lancaster Royal Grammar schools and had worked as a bank clerk. He lived at Weymouth Croft, Carnforth.

JJ Martin is also commemorated on his parents’ grave monument in Carnforth and by local Scouts.


Separately, I am looking into another kinsman reputed to have served with Colonel Thomas Sanderson's Regiment of Foot, aka 1st Regiment of Marines (the original Yellow Bellies?) - together with any others from (and eventually interred in) neighbouring villages - during the capture and defence of Gibraltar in 1704 and another, reputed to have been a crew member on the renowned anti-slavery prize vessel HMS BLACK JOKE in the 1830's.

 

Hi S Hayward,

You'll find some of the glider pilots' names in the Glider Raid Reports for Varsity in Squadron Number: 298 Appendices: Y | The National Archives. They have been filed in the Appendices for 1944 in error. For the RASC Hamilcars look at image 334 onwards. Only the GRRs for 298 squadron are there but that's 50% of what you're looking for. I've searched high and low for the 644 squadron equivalent but without any success I'm afraid.

Hope this helps.
Jenny

 

Thanks for the link, much appreciated and gets me a lot closer. The closest similar thing I have come across for 644 squadron are the records from the war diary. Link : 644 Squadron . There are approx. 30 listed, (so potently a few missing from the list) although sadly the diary doesn't give CN numbers or Grid References. I'm also slightly sceptical of the manifests as there are at least 2 eye witness accounts reporting Carrier, Jeep and Trailer for at least one of the Hamilcar's which doesn't appear in either list.

 

I'm not going to say this is WHY I'm publishing through a small press (micro-press?) but my publisher has said "write your book the way you want it".

 

Building a World War Two website

I needed a hobby and it's cheaper than buying a sports car

 

I've submitted my Archer manuscript.

Now what?

 

I’ve now self published my book (112 pages) on my great Grandad’s WW2 service in the Military Police and 12th Corps Signals plus pre war service with Buffs in Palestine
Thanks to this forum as I got much assistance from it
Also included is my great Aunts ATS service and a chapter on the Southampton Blitz

 

"#1 Research or projects, big or small.
Got any good news to share, discovered helpful resources, encountered stumbling blocks, overcome any set-backs or, have you just met with a dead end?

Maybe you'd just like to confess your niche or even garner support from the similarly minded?"

211 Squadron RAF
In 1996, my father sent me detailed handwritten notes of his RAF service with 211 Squadron RAF as a Sgt Observer in 1940 and 1941, in more-or-less diary form.

It was very clear to me that his notes needed to be preserved and accessible. By early 1998, with those notes and the war-time family photo album, I was able to draw together enough material to make a small self-published booklet of 36 pages A4, with a small print run of 10 copies.

By the end of 1998, I'd found occasion to draft first an Erratum then an Addendum, resulting in a reprint of another 10 copies. Along the way, thanks to lodging a copy with the IWM, I'd been made aware of the then 211 Squadron Survivors Assn (now long since wound up).

After that, with letters and photos from ex-211 Squadron men via the Association, and via the son of a 211 Squadron Armourer who of all things lived in the next suburb and became a good mate, it was clear that something much more needed to be done. Ever-larger and likely endless revisions to my "211 Squadron RAF, Greece, 1940-1941" booklet were not going to be the answer.

With the 60th Anniversary of the Squadron's fatal Easter Sunday raid of 1941 approaching, I set to and turned the booklet into a website good enough to put on-line in April 2001.

One "lesser known" Squadron in one "lesser known" theatre: how hard could it be? By the end of 2001, I'd been able to add personal material for 16 ex-211s. By early 2002, with a major site redesign and a fair mass of new material, I was able to add a page for the Australian and RAAF members of the Squadron, while expanding the site to the 1942 Far East (Sumatra & Java) deployment. These were sufficient to meet what were then the National Library of Australia's PANDORA web-archive conditions for regular archival of my site, which continues today accessible via Trove.

From 2001 with a few pages in ISP "free" webspace with cumbersome "addresses" , my 211 Squadron website continued to grow, so after several moves and address changes, by 2013 I was able to move to paid hosting and the permanent site URL, www.211squadron.org.

From quite modest beginnings it now has 119 html pages, covers World War 1, World War 2, the several aircraft types, and much of the Squadron ORB in transcript. The site continues to be revised at least once a year (31 July) in advance of the latest NLA TROVE/PANDORA copy.

Over more than 25 years of research, it has been possible to identify perhaps 900 men by name at least, in a selection of nominal rolls. There are narratives of greater or lesser extent for 118 men of the Squadron, 76 of them as individual pages, thanks to the interest of ex-211s and their families.

Helpful sources
Squadron Operations Record Books AIR 27
Thanks to the pandemic, the UK National Archives has offered free and easy access to good grayscale scan PDFs of Squadron Operations Record Books, which continues in 2023.

RAF P4 Casualty files AIR 81
The rather ponderous transfer of RAF P4 Casualty files to UK National Archives continues albeit slowly and not without hiccup. Undigitised, visit with camera and/or paid researcher needed to access.

RAF Air Historical Branch Narratives
Relatively recently re-released in PDF form by AHB, for free download. On accessing these latest historical record sets by the RAF/MoD AHB, found to my surprise/relief that these later PDFs are now text searchable (also text select/copy enabled). Still, much respect to MLRS for their own long-standing effort.
https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/units/air-historical-branch/ahb-narratives/

Good news
After a pause from 2016 to 2021, offering a new email contact address has made very welcome contact with several more families of ex-211 men.

Stumbling blocks, set-backs, and dead ends
No shortage of these. A detailed lengthy search and enquiry for precise details (aircraft ids, aircrew names, dates) of Blenheim Delivery Flights to the Middle East from Jun to Dec 1940 found very little information. Persist as long as seems sensible, then note and put aside for possible return in future. In writing, simply observe eg "currently unresolved", rather than delay whatever your next step might be.


Finally...
In short, it turned out that going from booklet to web-site was a good thing, not least for ease of correction/addition. While some book authors still dismiss personal sites out of hand, even today families find my own site helpful and I welcome their contact. Site back to book form? Not practical now, despite occasional suggestions, for both format and sheer size and copy cost (a site print now takes over a ream of paper double-sided).
Site summary: Site summary
Next site update 31 July, details on the day at Site updates

 

Not quite as exciting as others -

I am restoring an 1858 dated P53 Enfield - issued to the Native Infantry then sold to the Confederates.

Cheers
Emps

 

Yep, that's how I feel about mine! I'm still confident enough to put a round through it.....I think!

Nothing like messing around with black powder and 165 year old firearms!

 

Hi Observer39,

Great project! Simple (not in a negative way!) but clear and effective website.
I'm doing something similar with my 8th Rifle Brigade website ( Home - 8th Rifle Brigade ). Like you, one of the nicest and most rewarding things to me is being contacted by veteran's relatives, and often receiving fresh material from them (i.e. scanned photos and documents). The main negative aspect of a website compared to a book, I find, is that the website will disappear when I disappear (i.e. after I stop paying for it). This I've now solved, by having my website archived at the British Library. Although their search engine is not yet functioning properly, it can be viewed at Search Results (al link I received after inquiring with BL). If you'd want your own site to be archive, you can get in touch through Save a UK website. Good luck with your site!

Ronald.