Pilot Officer David Wood was called up at the start of the Second World War. Wood was one of the first volunteers from the Reserve Force which was inaugurated at Scone Aerodrome in late 1938. He was the star pupil of the volunteer school and became flight commander of Perth 38F Squadron (3rd Scottish), Air Defence Cadet Corps (later renamed […]
Antony Verdon Verdon was born 1 July 1915 at the Caundle Marsh Rectory in Sherbourne, Dorset, England to Everad and Mary Edith Dorothea Verdon. In 1944, he married Phyliss Ella Impett of 12 Kinfauns Crescent, Perth. (Kinfauns Crescent is now 93 Needless Road). Verdon was the nephew of Humphrey Verdon […]
Gavin Strang Smith was the son of Robert and Marion Leiper Smith of Drumearn, Kincarrathie Crescent, Perth. He was educated at Sharp’s Institution and Perth Academy (1933/1938). He served his law apprenticeship (trainee solicitor) between 1938 and 1940 with Messer’s McCash & Hunter, Perth. Gavin enlisted in the Royal Air […]
What happened to Sergeant Derrick Barrie RAFVR (755136), age 19, is a bit of a puzzle. He was recorded as killed along with Pilot Officer Matthew Roy Turnbull RAF (42915), age 19, and Sergeant Gilbert Peter Rowe RAFVR (751202), age 20, in the squadron operational record, but this is incorrect. Simpson was in fact killed […]
On the night of 13/14 February 1945, Bomber Command launched the infamous raid on Dresden. Two separate raids of 805 bombers led by RAF 7 Squadron as the Pathfinders, dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs onto the target. US bombers attacked the marshalling yards and the city the following […]
On 12 May 1940, at 0500 hours, three Bristol Blenheim’s of RAF 235 Squadron took off from RAF Bircham Newton, 13.4 miles north east of King’s Lynn, Norfolk. Their task was to protect a small force of Royal Marines and a battalion of Irish and Welsh Guards (651) at the Hoek van Holland […]
During World War Two, more than 30,000 men served with the Airfield Construction (AC) Wings of the RAF (also known as Works Squadrons). An AC Squadron member consisted of every known trade and profession from the construction industry and their task was to repair bomb-damaged airfields and build new ones. As the war progressed, there was a requirement for longer and heavier runways as […]
On the night of 2/3 August 1941, Bomber Command sent 80 bombers to Hamburg, 53 to Berlin and 50 to Kiel, alongside 25 other operations. Eleven bombers were lost that night. David Hodge of RAF 104 Squadron was onboard Vickers Wellington W5580 (EP-K) when it was lost over the North Sea and ditched off the coast of the Isle of Sylt, […]
RAF Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina Mk.IVa JX257, callsign Q/210, from RAF 210 Squadron took off from RAF Sullom Voe, Shetland, on 2 April 1945 at 1030 hours on an anti-submarine patrol north east of the Faeroe Islands. The crew are thought to have completed the patrol and were on their way home. At 0038 hours, a signal was received from the aircraft, ‘S.O.S. – KJOR 1515′. This was repeated at 0046, 0047, […]
RAF 144 Squadron’s first WW2 attack on a German land objective was on 6 March 1940. It involved attacking the German minelaying and seaplane base at Hornum, on the island of Sylt. Just over two months later, 10 May 1940, Germany invaded the Low Countries and France and on that […]
