Pilot, Sergeant Crichton Alexander Smith, RAFVR 1368806 died on 10 March 1942 at RAF 61 Operational Training Unit (OTU), RAF Heston, Middlesex, England. On 8 March 1942, in a Miles M.9A Master Mk.I T8504 taking off from RAF Heston, the aircraft swung 90% and crashed into four parked aircraft on […]
Pilot Officer Douglas James M. Neill RAFVR (81336) was the son of James M. Neill (Surveyor) and Jemima T. W. Neill, Gwalior, Newton Street, Blairgowrie. He had qualified as a pilot before the war and had a considerable amount of experience flying solo. Douglas had been nearly three years in […]
On Monday, 14 October 1940 the aircraft (12) of RAF 139 Squadron took off at 11.00 a for a bombing raid (raid B.H. 581) in the north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands from a station (airfield) at Horsham St. Faith (from 1963, Norwich International Airport). Sergeant David Neill RAF (976437) […]
Jean Millar Valentine (7 July 1924 – 17 May 2019) was born in Perth, Scotland, the only child of Mr and Mrs James Valentine of Wilson Street. Jean was an operator of the Bombe decryption device in Hut 11 at Bletchley Park in England. This was the machine designed by […]
Pilot Officer John McLaren was the pilot of RAF 166 Squadron, Avro Lancaster III, JB644, AS-A2 on the night of 12 July 1944. They were recalled before reaching their target and were attacked on the way back and shot down by a German night-fighter. Taking off at 21.20 hours from […]
Squadron Leader David Douglas Pryde DFC was born in Crieff on 17 April 1918 and was one of three brothers who died during the early years of World War Two. Squadron Leader David Douglas Pryde was the son of the Reverend John Marshall Pryde, B.D. and Jean Marshall Pryde, at […]
On 8 August 1918, the Battle of Amiens offensive opened at 4.20 am with a deafening artillery barrage by over two thousand guns. Moments later a combined assault by infantry and tanks commenced along a twenty-mile front between Morlancourt and La Neuville-Sire-Bernard (on the river Ayre to the south). The […]
Lieutenant Cyril Williams was an Observer on a Morane BB (5193) aircraft, Royal Flying Corps (RFC) Squadron No. 60 in France during WW1. Cyril was born on 5 June 1986 at Argyll Place, Edinburgh, the elder son of George Thomas Williams, Civil Engineer, and Elizabeth Fenton, of Fenton’s Shipbuilder and […]
Of all the war graves I know about during my research of Perthshire’s aviators, the grave of Henry Anselm de Freitas, AFM (1917–1943) is the one that I often revisit and have in a way adopted. Henry is unique in being buried in Perth, so very far away from his […]
Lieutenant Peter MacFarlane on 10 August 1918 was part of an RAF 32 Squadron offensive patrol of 40 aircraft, when he was shot down whilst escorting 12 bombers of RAF 27 and RAF49 Squadrons to attack Péronne railway station, 50 km east of Amiens. Lieutenant Peter MacFarlane was flying a […]
