Flight Segeant Gordon Howard

Icare9 · May 16, 2010

There is no evidence of him being a Flight Sergeant, so perhaps an amendment to the caption is now in order?
We can't find any supporting evidence for him being in Bomber Command, and the aircraft in your "crew" photo is not a Lancaster. No trace of Augsburg or Dresden involvement.
You have his Service Record, clearly no flight training and medically discharged in 1942.

Sorry, can't help further, I'll have to leave it to other Pals to see if they can make some sense of this.

Hinrik WD · Aug 13, 2010

BazHoward said:

Many thanks for your reply. On my Dad's marriage certificate in December 1946, his profession is shown as electrician. Re later medical problems, he always had stomach problems, which he ascribed to having had the joy stick jammed into his stomach when he crash-landed in the dark into a Kent hop field. In connection with this incident, I remember him saying how terrified he was to see locals with flaming torches coming across the field, when he could smell spilled aircraft fuel all around him.
I have to say that I had just come to accept that he had not been a pilot, when I spoke to my aunt, who was married to my Dad's younger brother (also in the RAF). She met her future husband in 1943 and remembers him telling her that his elder brother was a pilot in the RAF. She remembered a photo of my Dad in uniform and that he had "a flash on his cap, which meant he was aircrew". This reminded me of the attached photograph of him. From some research, and using my very limited knowledge, am I not right in thinking that the white flash at the top of his cap actually denotes aircrew in training? When I asked my Dad about this photo many years ago, he said he thought it was taken when he was on leave in 1941, (when he would have been 18) but that date could be wrong. But if the flash does denote aircrew in training then neither that nor the date fits with what it says on his service record.
More intriguingly still, my aunt clearly remembers that it was the Kent and Canterbury Hospital where my Dad being looked after when she says he was seriously injured in a crash. She also remembered a specific incident that I had never heard of (but which was probably a common occurrence in wartime) when my Dad's aircraft was badly shot up and "his gunner" was killed. My Dad had evidently been best man at the gunner's wedding and when they got back to base, he insisted on going to break the news to the man's widow who lived in a cottage near the runway. I'm now more puzzled than ever.
A final question. Were any RAF squadrons ever stationed in Iceland during the war, or was it only Canadians?
Click to expand...

Baz

The following RAF squadrons were based in Iceland WWII:

119
120
209
221
269
330 Norweigians

The 269th and 330th stayed the longest. I have a suitecase full of items from a RAF pilot in the 269th sq which mainly flew Hudson aircraft on U-boat patols. They are acredited with sinking a few U-boats.

Here is a website with the 269th sq history:

Home Page

Reg

BazHoward · Aug 23, 2010

Many thanks for this.

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Flight Segeant Gordon Howard

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