INGATESTONE BOYS’ OWN CLUB RAF BOMBER COMMAND MEMORIAL EXHIBITION
This special exhibition is to take place at Essex Libraries, Ingatestone Library, High Street, Ingatestone, Essex from Monday 18 June to Saturday 7 July 2012, to coincide with the erection of the new memorial in Green Park, London which is to be unveiled by Her Majesty The Queen on Thursday 28 June 2012. It will feature material relating to four old members of Ingatestone Boys’ Own Club who served and died as members of RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War (1939-1945). Some of the documents were first shown in 2006 at the unveiling of the new war memorial in Ingatestone and this exhibition now includes some original
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records and photographs from the club records which will be on public view for the first time. (Contact: ROBERT FLETCHER: 01277 354431 / rfletcher189@aol.com)
“I once heard a former aircraft gunner say that from his place in the glazed turret at the rear of the plane, he could still see the burning city of Cologne even when they were on their way out again over the Dutch coast; it was a fiery speck in the darkness 1 like the tail of a motionless comet”
Watching a BBC London News item a few months ago, I was reminded that a memorial to RAF Bomber Command was under construction in Green Park, London, and that it was to be unveiled by HM The Queen on the 28 June 2012. This seemed a suitable opportunity to re-visit some of the documents that appeared in the 2006 exhibition to link in with the unveiling of our new war memorial in Ingatestone. In addition, since 2006 I had obtained more information, particularly on the RAF Boys’ Own Club Old Members on the war memorial, and our local library now had a display cabinet which would enable me to show some of the actual documents and the photograph remembrance album that was missing at the time of the 2006 exhibition (Miss Pemberton used this as a centrepiece of the shrine she erected in the Boys’ Own Club each November to remember the ten old boys who had died in the Second World War on active service). Following a visit to the IWM London in late 2006 to present them with a copy of the exhibition documents, it was suggested to me that for conservation purposes, all the War Service documents held in the old club A-Z lever arch files be removed to safer storage and this I undertook a few years back. The resultant papers fill one large storage box. These cover the “War Records” of old members both during the war and in the immediate post-war period of reconstruction in Europe and the Far East and for those undergoing National Service immediately post-war, which included my late father who spent his time mostly in Libya. Some old members joined the armed forces prior to 1939, like A A “Bert” Holmes, whose RAF career started in Uxbridge in 1935 and took him to Iraq2, Egypt and India. Bert’s fascinating letters to Miss Pemberton often touch on the international situation in the late 1930s and contain eerie prophesies of strategic area bombing. These form a sort of “Phoney 1
W.G. Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), pp.22-23 “Never shall I forget the appalling climate, the filthy food, and the ghastly lack of very sort of amenity that our unfortunate men were compelled to put up with in “peace time”, for two years at a stretch, away from their families”: Sir Arthur Harris on his RAF Iraq experiences at Hinaidi in the 1920s. For a while after this he commanded 58 Squadron in England, John Moore’s squadron, the first heavy bomber group to be reconstituted after WW1 (Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Offensive, (London: Greenhill Books, 1990), p.23). Bert’s brother Dudley’s 76 Squadron were commanded for a time in 1942 by Leonard Cheshire. 2
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War sub-file” and his references are especially important in a social history sense. These papers exhibited here are therefore just four-tenths of a much larger body of records. Coming from an age before PCs, email and even the regular use of typewriters, the records contain very few of Miss Pemberton’s letters, as these would have been handwritten. We do get her notes, including the record of her meeting with the Australian survivor of the Bert Holmes crash in October 1944, and in these we see her familiar script, which I must admit, influenced my handwriting as a teenager. The letters back to her from these men often mention the subject matter of her letters and from these we can piece together the various interests they would have contained. They often mention her Christmas Newsletters which became an Ingatestone institution right up to the 1980s and would have kept all the old members in touch, wherever they all were, and would fill them in on what was going on in this Essex village community. A few years back, I discovered the plan to construct a USAAF bomber base on land to the north of Thoby Lane, Mountnessing, which would have been known as “RAF Ingatestone”.3 Work started in the August of 1942 but stopped that December as the Americans concentrated on finishing their other bases under construction further out in East Anglia. The nearby facilities at Willingale (RAF Chipping Ongar) and at RAF Boreham near Chelmsford were finished and became operational. It is interesting to reflect that should RAF Ingatestone have gone ahead we could have had B17 Flying Fortresses limping back from missions over Europe using Ingatestone church tower as a navigation marker, aiming for the runway. The experience of the Second World War in Ingatestone and the surrounding area would have been so much different for us and local knowledge of the bombing campaign by both RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF more personal.
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Whether you believe in any sort of God or Gods, the final sentiment of the Club Motto is an uncontroversial and fine one. In her letter to Miss Pemberton dated 22 June 1944, Bert Holmes’ mother consoled herself that “...he had done his best and I am very proud of him, God Bless him”. She may not have known the Club Motto, but it seems a fitting way to sum him up, and the other three old members remembered here, and it also serves as a good place for this introduction to end.
Robert W Fletcher Ingatestone, Essex, England 18 June 2012.
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Paul A. Doyle, Fields of the First, (North Weald Bassett: Forward Airfield Research Publishing, 1997), P.63. (See also Captain Barry Anderson, USAF, Army Air Forces Stations, (Research Division, USAF Historical Research Center: January 1985, p.5) 4 Taken from the Ingatestone Boys’ Own Club’s A Service of Thanksgiving used at re-unions of Old Club Members
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BIBLIOGRAPHY & SOURCES Books Anderson, Barry, Capt. USAF, Army Air Forces Stations, Research Division, USAF Historical Research Center: January 1985) Bishop, P, The Bomber Boys, (London: Harper Perennial, 2008) Cheshire, L, Bomber Pilot, (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1939-1945) Christie, I, A Matter Of Life And Death-BFI Film Classics, (London: bfi Publishing, 2000) Deighton, L, Bomber, (London: HarperCollins E-Books, 2009) Doyle, Paul, A, Fields of the First, (North Weald Bassett: Forward Airfield Research Publishing, 1997) Fletcher, R W, Ingatestone Boys’ Own Club Roll of Honour 2006, (Ingatestone: R W Fletcher, 2006 – Essex Records Office SEAX ESSEX ARCHIVES ONLINE REF: T/P 760/1-2006) Harris, Arthur, Bomber Offensive, (London: Greenhill Books, 1990) Ingatestone Boys’ Own Club, A Service of Thanksgiving used at re-unions of Old Club Members Neillands, R, The Bomber War-Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Offensive 1939-1945, (London: John Murray, 2004) Sebald, W G, On the Natural History of Destruction, (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003) Mabey, R, The Barley Bird, (Framlingham: Full Circle Editions, 2010)
Film, radio, audio, periodicals and online references Films A Matter Of Life And Death, (UK, Powell and Pressburger, 1946) The Dambusters, (UK, Michael Anderson, 1955) Radio Bomber, (UK-BBC Radio 4, Adrian Bean, 1995) Phoenix FM 98.00, (UK, Brentwood’s local FM radio station) Audio RAF Bomber Command At War 1939-1945 (Vol. 2), (UK, CD41 Recordings Download from www.play.com , 2011)
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Periodicals BBC History Magazine, July 2012 (UK, BBC Worldwide, 2012) Brentwood Gazette, (UK, Northcliffe Media, 13 June 2012) The Journal, October 2009, (UK, The Journal, 2009) The Guardian, (UK, Guardian Newspapers, Editorial Saturday 19 May 2012) Online references http://www.aircrewremembrancesociety.com http://www.bombercommand.com/thememorial http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/
http://www.facebook.com http://www.flickr.com – “Fryerning Frame” http://www.francecrashes39-45.net http://www.imdb.com/ http://www.raf.mod.uk http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk http://www.twgpp.org http://www.ukniwm.org.uk http://www.wikipedia.org/
Acknowledgements and thanks Brentwood Gazette and Paul Ainsworth – for an excellent interview and article in the paper on 13 June 2012 Essex Libraries Chelmsford Library Essex Libraries Ingatestone Library Thanks must go, again, to Sharon Stevens and her staff at Essex Libraries Ingatestone for taking up my idea for this exhibition and agreeing to run it through the period of the London memorial unveiling Mike Harrison – for the additional information he provided in June 2012
Patrick Sherring - for his interest and for interviewing me on his late night programme at Phoenix.fm Friday 8 June 2012
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INGATESTONE BOYS’ OWN CLUB
RAF BOMBER COMMAND MEMORIAL EXHIBITION
INDEX OF SUNDRY DOCUMENTS
1.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
Miss Pemberton’s notes regarding Ronald Davies and his death Letter of 22.06.1944 from Mrs Bartrop on death of Bert Holmes Flt. Lt. Morrison’s report (in French) of his experiences in France in 1944 Miss Pemberton’s account of her meeting with Flt. Lt. Morrison on 07.10.1944 Photographs held at the Mairie-Croisilles of the funerals on 18.06.1944 Dudley Holmes’ letter from RAF Rufforth regarding Flt. Lt. Morrison and his brother DFC award notice for Flt. Lt. Morrison as posted in the London Gazette Mrs Thornton’s account (in French) of her 1975 visit to her brother’s grave Article from La Voix du Nord, Arras regarding the Croisilles crash-2000 Transcription of Croisilles article with comment from village website Email from Mairie-Croisilles to R W Fletcher-24.11.2005 Letter of 31.12.1944 from Mrs Bartrop on death of Dudley Holmes Letter of 08.01.1945 from Mrs Bartrop on death of her sons and Scoutmaster Potts Newspaper cutting regarding “Jack” Moore being posted as missing War memorial from the Library at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford “Torry” and Skip Seymour at Coptfold Hall, Margaretting-1967
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INGATESTONE BOYS’ OWN CLUB
RAF BOMBER COMMAND MEMORIAL EXHIBITION
INDEX OF CWGC WAR GRAVES/MEMORIALS
1. 2. 3. 4.
Bishop’s Stortford Old Cemetery-Ronald Davies Croisilles British Cemetery-Bert Holmes The Air Forces Memorial, Runneymede, Surrey-John Moore Rheinberg War Cemetery, Germany-Dudley Holmes
INGATESTONE BOYS’ OWN CLUB
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RAF BOMBER COMMAND MEMORIAL EXHIBITION INDEX OF ADDENDA
During the weekend of 16/17 June 2012 I had some interesting email correspondence with Mike Harrison who gave me useful information that filled in some gaps in my knowledge of the Holmes brothers, their deaths and, particularly, in respect of Holme-on-Spalding Moor airfield and 76 Squadron. I am very grateful to Mike that he has given me permission to add these items to the exhibition.
Just before these items are some photographs I took recently relating to the subject and matters referred to in the introduction.
1. Photograph of the Brentwood Gazette notice board outside the Ingatestone Chelmsford Star Co-op on 13 June 2012 2. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and other aircraft going over Blackmore Church on Tuesday 5 June 2012, during the Diamond Jubilee Weekend 3. The site of “RAF Ingatestone” off Thoby Lane-Tuesday 5 June 2012 4. Details of the crash of Bert Holmes’ Lancaster 5. Paul-Hubert Rauh (1913-2005) and papers relating to his Luftwaffe service and a JU88 night fighter 6. Details of the crash of Dudley Holmes’ Halifax and the surviving pilot, F/Lt S B Harrison, who is not named in Miss Pemberton’s records 7. An email regarding All Saints Church, Holme-on-Spalding Moor, Yorkshire and RAF memorials there and in York Minster and Halifax bombers at Elvington, Yorkshire 8. The Cologne attack of 30/31 December 1944 and a map of the airfield at Holme-onSpalding Moor 9. 76 Squadron ready for an attack on Kassel, 22 October 1943 10. The 76 Squadron memorial window in All Saints Church, Holme-on-Spalding Moor, Yorkshire
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