|
Post by McFly on Sept 22, 2020 20:56:21 GMT 12
Bloody hell, I had forgotten that I'd posted it already. But we're still no further forward with naming the other three.. Here's another Dave just to add to the mix. Taken at the Avon Theatre Christchurch for the "Battle of Britain" film premiere - 1969.
|
|
|
Post by thebrads on Sept 22, 2020 22:49:28 GMT 12
I too found Capel-Le-Verne a striking place. It really brought home the meaning of "The Few" when you see the names on the wall, and just how few there really were!
|
|
|
Post by kiwiruna on Sept 23, 2020 16:30:34 GMT 12
nuuumannn,thanks for sharing those are great photos. I note that Thames Airport now has a Hurricane on a stick,I'm fairly sure it's a pretty recent addition I don't remember seeing the last time I was in Thames a few days after the first lock down, but I could be wrong and just never noticed it.
|
|
|
Post by nuuumannn on Sept 23, 2020 16:42:02 GMT 12
Great pic's nuuumannn that Capel le Ferne memorial is a special place with a real atmosphere. Thanks mate. That entire coastline between Capel and Dover is fascinating, being right at the forefront of the battle areas in two world wars. Here are some images I took that same day. The entrance to RNAS Capel airship station off the main road to Dover, alongside the Royal Oak public house, which was there when it was a naval airship station. The house in the foreground wasn't present and accommodation and admin huts sat along the road leading to the airship shed. 2307 RAF Capel airship station entrance This is the rear of the caravan park whose entrance is on the main road and is looking toward the rear of where the airship shed was located on site. The shed crossed the main road and at the time the smaller coast road was the only access to Dover from Capel. The tarmac dates back to the station. 2307 RAF Capel airship station campground A lookout point high on the cliff side to the east of Capel. Built in the late 20s/early 30s, this was located here as an OP for the aerial defences located nearby. It is accessed by a dirt road off the main road and a short walk. 2307 Kent observation post The local air defence detection system, a sound mirror. There's the OP in the distance. 2307 Kent Sound Mirror i The sound mirrors were precisely made and larger than they look in these photos. 2307 Kent Sound Mirror ii The precise location of where Louis Bleriot's aeroplane came to rest on the grounds of Dover Castle in 1909. 2307 Dover Bleriot MemorialThe memorial plaque close up. 2307 Dover Bleriot Memorial inscription Taken from the grounds of Dover Castle, the spit to the right on this side of the cruise ship was the very first spot to be bombed by aeroplane in the UK. On Christmas eve 1914, a single Friedrichshafen seaplane flew over the spit and dropped a bomb on it. 2307 Dover Pier There are tours of the tunnels under the ground where the Admiralty had ops rooms during both the Great War and WW2. This is the entrance to the access tunnels. Access is via a tour only. 2307 Dover Castle tunnel entrance The Ops room from where Operation Dynamo (Dunkirk evacuation) was planned and managed. 2307 Dover Castle Ops Room An above-ground bunker used as an anti-aircraft position for aerial defences during the Great War and an OP during WW2. 2307 Dover Castle OPWW2 AA defences in the barricades around Dover castle. 2307 Dover Castle AA gun Repurposed Chain Home towers at Swingate, with a gravel road surviving from when the site was an RFC airfield in the Great War. Hangars were located in the grassy area to the left of the path. 2307 Kent Swingate airfield The RFC memorial at Swingate. The airfield was the departure point for the RFC squadrons that flew to France after the outbreak of the Great War. 2307 Kent RFC Swingate memorial
|
|
|
Post by nuuumannn on Sept 23, 2020 17:01:01 GMT 12
nuuumannn,thanks for sharing those are great photos. I note that Thames Airport now has a Hurricane on a stick,I'm fairly sure it's a pretty recent addition I don't remember seeing the last time I was in Thames a few days after the first lock down, but I could be wrong and just never noticed it. No worries mate. It's been a long time since I was in Thames. I take it the Hurricane is in the markings of Park's aeroplane...
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 23, 2020 17:05:03 GMT 12
Yes, it is. It was unveiled two weekends ago.
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 24, 2020 15:48:12 GMT 12
Max Lambert has suggested to me that he thinks the Group Captain seated on the right might be Patrick "Jamie" Jamieson. These are photos of him: I am not sure. If this was indeed the premier of Battle of Britain, Jamieson would have left the Royal Air Force in 1960, nine years before, as an Air Commodore. So could it be that this is not that premier, but perhaps some other gathering? Or maybe it is just not Jamie Jamieson? Max also thinks the chap seated on the right is David "Dinny" Campbell of Dargaville. This is him during the war: Any thoughts?
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 24, 2020 15:59:15 GMT 12
Hmm, however in the 1969 photo of Sir Keith Park on this page he looks decidedly much older than in the pilots photo, so maybe that photo does date from an earlier period? www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/hero-returnsMaybe the photo is from 1956 when Sir Keith arranged for the Spitfire to be installed at Auckland War Memorial Museum? If that is Jamieson, he probably was a Group Captain in 1956?
|
|
|
Post by pjw4118 on Sept 24, 2020 16:25:45 GMT 12
Sir Keith was born in June 1892 , flew in the RFC , then as we know AOC in the BoB , then to Malta and finally the FE so perhaps he is entitled to look a bit worn by then .
And great pictures Grant , thank you .
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 24, 2020 18:20:46 GMT 12
My comment was not meant as a criticism of Sir Keith, far from it. I am simply trying to date the photo I posted.
|
|
|
Post by pjw4118 on Sept 25, 2020 13:53:38 GMT 12
I know that Dave , when I last met him ( an age ago ) he was like a little raisin but spoke perfectly . Wouldnt his log book and album be interesting.
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 25, 2020 16:51:01 GMT 12
They would. I seem to recall his logbooks vanished?
|
|
|
Post by Mustang51 on Sept 25, 2020 16:56:09 GMT 12
Bit like Bobby Gibbes.............Robyn told me that an "enthusiast" borrowed them.........
|
|
|
Post by nuuumannn on Sept 25, 2020 17:50:35 GMT 12
Sir Keith was born in June 1892 , flew in the RFC , then as we know AOC in the BoB , then to Malta and finally the FE so perhaps he is entitled to look a bit worn by then . And great pictures Grant , thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for the comment.
|
|
|
Post by nuuumannn on Sept 25, 2020 17:53:20 GMT 12
Bit like Bobby Gibbes.............Robyn told me that an "enthusiast" borrowed them......... When I worked at the RAF Museum, one of the archivists "temporarily misplaced" Douglas Bader's log book. There was a computerised archive management system named Vernon and when we got stuff out of the archive, we had to record it as being located at our desks, and this dude relocated it back in the box where it belonged on vernon, but put it in a different box on the same shelf. For two weeks he was sweating...
|
|
|
Post by pjw4118 on Sept 26, 2020 11:20:56 GMT 12
Arthur Parrish He isn't in this photo at the 1970 Reunion
|
|
|
Post by pjw4118 on Sept 26, 2020 11:52:14 GMT 12
Just checking photobucket is working now. The photo is from Arthur Parrish and the comment was meant to say Sir Keith isnt here .
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 26, 2020 12:51:14 GMT 12
Your Photobucket is working now at least.
|
|
|
Post by pjw4118 on Oct 1, 2020 8:51:24 GMT 12
There was a good locally made documentary about Sir Keith Park last night on Maori TV . Titled The Man Who Saved England and made by Greenstone Pictures , it probably a repeat but well done.
|
|
|
Post by chinapilot on Oct 1, 2020 18:50:32 GMT 12
Just wondering if the beaming guy directly behind the up raised fingers is Antoni ‘Tony’ Glowacki...one of the BoB ‘Aces in a Day’ and at that time a very popular inspector with the then CAD.
|
|