Ken Newman (second from right) who flew with the Steven crew and missed their fatal flight on 14 January 1944 due to a bad skin complaint, will be 98 years old this coming Sunday. Ironically, that is only four days off the 75th anniversary of the crash. If anyone would like to send a message to Ken via us, please send an email as soon as possible. He doesn’t do computers, so it will have to be printed out and posted to him.
Ken has always felt deeply grieved by the loss of the crew and of Leslie Laver who took his place on that last night.
He has a very clear memory of some of those old long-lost days. One very interesting little story he told me was about Ace’s girlfriend at the time (Ace is on the left of the photograph). She was an artist and she painted the Steven crew as the seven dwarves. Ken was Dopey and Steve ‘would have been Doc’, but he doesn’t remember the others at the moment. They were going to get it painted on the nose of their aircraft but it probably didn’t happen.
Please make sure that we receive any messages for Ken by Thursday morning at the latest. The usual email address, i.e.: info@raf-pathfindersarchive.com.
JENNIE MACK GRAY