Black Thursday Week: Charles Owen Diary Entry

This crew photograph was taken from the cockpit of the Lancaster, almost certainly by Owen himself. The three men wearing gumboots are the ground crew for the aircraft. The man second from the left is Tom Leak, but it is not known who the other four crew members are.   The photograph is now at the Imperial War Museum with Owen's operations diary.

Charles Owen kept an operations diary, and one of the most interesting pages is the one he wrote for Black Thursday.

This particular entry has often been quoted but there is nothing like seeing the actual handwriting. One of the critical phrases is ‘landed without permission in appalling conditions’. To read the full story of this unauthorised landing, see Tom Leak’s story on the Owen crew page.

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