Category: Archive News

Continuing our occasional series on the RAF and Bomber Command leadership, here is a priceless story told by Harris about the London Blitz in 1940. The sentry whom he describes surely has a direct lineage to Shakespeare’s clowns.

During the Blitz, Harris used to go up on the roof of the Air Ministry to watch the sight of London burning. On what was probably the night of 29/30 December 1940, he watched ‘the old city in flames […] with St Paul’s standing out in the midst of an ocean of fire – an incredible sight’. He was alone on the roof with a sentry, and in order to make conversation Harris said to the man that if his history was right, the last time London had burned had been 1666, and he told the sentry that he was looking at history.

This seemed not to make the slightest impression on him; he did not even answer beyond sucking his teeth. I asked him how long he had been there, and he said for the whole of the war, as he was over-age for active service. I asked him whether he wasn’t very bored on ordinary nights, and he said that he wasn’t because he was a student of natural history. That seemed to me a somewhat extraordinary pursuit to engage in on the roofs of Whitehall, and I asked him to explain what he meant. He said that there were some 40 to 50 cats from Government offices on the roofs at night, and that what with the fights and one thing and another there was plenty to see, especially as there was an “unexploded tom” amongst them.

Sir Arthur Harris, BOMBER OFFENSIVE (1949)

Harris wrote that watching London burn that night was the only time he ever felt vengeful against the Germans, and even then it only lasted for a moment.

I am sure it will have escaped few people’s notice that it is the 100th anniversary of the RAF on 1 April. Whilst this is a momentous date historically speaking, the fabulous cake above says it all in a deliciously lighthearted and ingenious way.

With thanks to Josh Stewart, and Geoff Alan, RAF.

We have two unusual requests for information to post this morning.

One concerns Jurik Herman, a Polish airman who flew as a Navigator in a Mosquito squadron.

The other concerns an unknown airman whom we hope someone can identify, his wartime photograph was kept by the young woman in the photograph above. SEE FULL DETAILS

 

 

It has now been decided that due to the ever-increasing volume of data, we are going to have to adopt a new policy for the website and change the old established policy of having a separate crew page for each crew.

What we will be doing in future is:

• Make a detailed announcement every time we acquire new material about a member of aircrew
• Add the name or names to the Master List of aircrew on whom we hold data – this is the beginning of the projected database
• Publish an updated version of the Master List on the website – it is planned that the first version of this List will appear before 11 November, Remembrance Day
• Have a feature each month for a particular crew or a particular incident or topic

The only ‘old style’ crew pages currently online are those related to Black Thursday. It is anticipated that these will remain on the site permanently in order to link them in to the display at RAF Wyton.

More details about the Master List will appear when it is published. It will, of course, be fully searchable, and we will be delighted to answer research requests concerning the names which are on it.