Pathfinder Aircrew, their Friends, their Families, and the World they Knew
Further to the previous post and the Bryan de Grineau drawings in The Illustrated London News, 26 February 1944, it has suddenly become clear that the drawings are closely related to the Press photograph of Harris using a stereopticon which was on the link included in the post. See this further link Harris’s Office, Bomber Command HQ, which quite apart from the fascination of looking at Harris’s office shows once again how adroit the RAF were at PR.
In February we featured Captain Bryan de Grineau’s drawing of Lancaster gunners ‘Hotting-up‘ which was published in The Illustrated London News in December 1943. Now here is another fascinating Bryan de Grineau drawing, also from The Illustrated London News, of the underground room at Bomber Command which housed the Photographic Interpretation Section of the Intelligence Department. This drawing was published on 26 February 1944.
Sir Arthur Harris, the C-in-C, is shown examining a mosaic of the latest reconnaissance photographs taken over Berlin. In the bottom right of the drawing is an officer using a stereopticon. More about Harris and stereopticons.
The text tells us that ‘The Chief’ was on one of his visits from his office. Deputy C-in-C, Sir Robert Saundby, is the figure standing with his back to the artist, just to the right of Harris.
The WAAF officer in the foreground of the left side of the picture (below) is working on an enlarged photograph, outlining a forthcoming target for the Operations Room. It is perhaps her artistry which leads to The Illustrated London News to comment that the Photographic Interpretation Section ‘has more of the atmosphere of a studio than is usual in a command headquarters’.
John’s funeral will be on Monday 29th April 2019 at 3.00 pm. This will be held at Harwood Park Crematorium, Watton Road, Stevenage SG2 8XT. The family have issued an open invitation and all are welcome to attend.
Although this will in many ways be a deeply sad occasion, it will also be a celebration of an extraordinary man, a highly decorated Pathfinder, and a great character whose children remember his terrifying high-speed car driving which went hand in hand with his favourite saying:
Life consists of the quick or the dead, particularly when you have a Messerschmitt 109 up your arse.
Here is a message from John Clifford, one of our Trustees and Senior Curator at the Pathfinder Collection at Wyton:
Dear All
It is with deep regret that due to circumstances outside my control or influence, the dedication for the Pathfinder Memorial planned to be held at The National Memorial Arboretum on Saturday 13th April 2019 at 13:00 hrs has to be postponed. This mainly due to the fact that the Memorial stone is still not in place!
Plan B is being hatched at present and once details are known, an update will be posted in the first instance.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Yours Aye John
Earlier this week we posted a page on H2S, a radar aid used extensively by the Pathfinders. Two connected pages concern the wartime death, in a Halifax crash, of Alan Blumlein, the inventor of H2S, and what was done after this tragic accident to keep the project going. The two pages are:
Bennett & the Development of H2S
There has been a very committed campaign to create a memorial to Blumlein in the last few months, led by the Hereford Times, which wrote in January 2019:
We plan a permanent memorial to Blumlein and his colleagues in the form of a metal plaque mounted on a plinth near a riverside path overlooking the site of the tragedy. Our appeal has the support of the Blumlein family and Jerome Vaughan, on whose land the memorial will be placed. It is being spearheaded by Garth Lawson, the Hereford Times walks writer, who has long believed a tribute to Blumlein was overdue.
It is believed that the money for this memorial has now been raised, partly by a generous donation from EMI with whom Blumlein was working when he was killed.
In January we posted on Bennett and the Russians, not realising that there is a rather wonderful story in Bennett’s autobiography Pathfinder to which we should have drawn attention. So here it is at last. It is presumably the explanation why Bennett was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky, which had always seemed a bit of a mystery before.
We have received the very sad news this morning that John Sauvage, who so recently celebrated his 100th birthday, died yesterday after a short illness. We will be giving further details of John’s career in the RAF later this week. John is in the centre of this crew photograph. Rest in Peace.
We have recently been sent a number of very interesting photographs of the Montgomery crew (97 Squadron) which we will display on the website shortly. However, one particular detail on one of the photographs immediately jumped out in view of our recent posts on carrier pigeons. This photograph was taken at Woodhall Spa prior to the La Spezia operation on 13 April 1943. The crew are waiting to board the aircraft and with them are two boxes for carrier pigeons. This answers some of the questions posed on our page A Lancaster is Going to Germany.
Photograph courtesy of Robert Granger.
This week we are publishing three connected pages on the Pathfinders and H2S, starting with one about H2S itself. H2S produced a map of the ground over which the aircraft using the equipment was flying. The highly accurate navigation and target-marking which were critical to the success of the Pathfinders could not have been achieved without this radar aid. There is a fascinating and tragic backstory to its development, which will be covered later this week.
The last post on carrier pigeons and Bomber Command has proved highly popular. That gives the perfect excuse to share a favourite magazine cover from November 1942, entitled ‘A Lancaster is Going to Germany’.
The text in the centre of the magazine has a paragraph which covers the use of carrier pigeons in Bomber Command. It reads: ‘These little winged friends are carried “in case anything happens”. They bring back the news. And they also call up rescue if the disabled bomber comes down in the sea.’ For more on this subject, see our new page: A Lancaster is Going to Germany