A Day In 1940.

“image above from CWGC website”

Dated Saturday the 13th of June 1940, this issue of the Daily Herald came into us a few weeks ago.
Right just before the start of the Battle Of Britain, this paper has a story on the front page which gives an insight to the Royal Air Force bombing operations and the heroism of some of those young men.

FIVE MEN IN ONE PLANE ARE ALL DECORATED.

This story goes on to explain the feats of one Pilot Officer and the crew of his Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber. We wont copy what the paper says here but upon researching the pilot, we find he was from Londonderry in Northern Ireland.
The sad thing about this story is that only 2 months after this story was printed, he and his crew were all killed returning from a raid over Germany.

During our research, we found so much information about the exact flight and their exploits prior to that fateful evening.

These newspapers are a great resource of information and takes the reader right back in time.

Please note that we have now included a ‘newspaper’ section after we had some requests to find that ‘something different’.

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Medium Bomber.

In addition to the newspaper we found the following from www.ww2ni.com:

Two weeks later on the night of 23rd / 24th September Pilot Officer Dunn was flying Whitley P5046 on an operation to Berlin.

On leaving the target the crew signalled that they were in difficulty and the last known position of the aircraft was approximately 80 Miles from the East coast of England. – It appeared that the aircraft had ditched.

The following day a dinghy was sighted by a Flying Boat and a further two days later it was found containing Sergeant Allen and Sergeant G.H. Riley who was barely alive when rescued and immediately taken to Hospital.

Sadly it was too late for Sergeant Allen who was just 19 years old when he died. He is buried in Farnham Cemetery, Surrey.

The bodies of Pilot Officer Andrew Woodrow Dunn DFC, Second Pilot, Sergeant Derek Albert Gibbons and Observer, Sergeant Bernard Leonard Savill DFM were all buried at Sea.

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