Halifax II

[Wurger]

Hi Wurger, Thanks again for your untiring digging. I live near the place LQ-M crashed. And because I know some of the local people who erected that small monument I have also got the book 'Six graves in the Village'. It was written after somebody found a little suitcase from the navigator's family containing a number of letters from relatives of the other crew members. So now I have some biographic data on the crew ad that gave me the idea to write a book about the bombing offensive, the pathfinders and 405 Sqn. Hence all my questions. You have been a great help.

THX. My pleasure.

 

[Nick]

Hi everyone, another question: on 24 may 1943 a Halifax started but couldn't leave the runway. It crashed at the end and the crew got away with minor injuries. According to the Operation Book the aircraft was category E.1. Any idea what that means?

 

[Wurger]

Hi everyone, another question: on 24 may 1943 a Halifax started but couldn't leave the runway. It crashed at the end and the crew got away with minor injuries. According to the Operation Book the aircraft was category E.1. Any idea what that means?

 

[Nick]

Hi, I'm still working on a book about the crash of this Halifax on 25 july 1943 at Ten Boer in the Netherlands. One crewmember survived the crash and was made POW. This was Bomb Aimer F/O Alexander Joseph Sochowski from Wolsley, Saskatchewan, Canada. After his release he was repatriated to Canada. I assume he was debriefed on his return. Could there be a possibility to find his debriefing report somewhere online?
And another question: Was the separation between sergeants and officers as strict with the RCAF as with the RAF?

 

[AL90]

Hi, I'm still working on a book about the crash of this Halifax on 25 july 1943 at Ten Boer in the Netherlands. One crewmember survived the crash and was made POW. This was Bomb Aimer F/O Alexander Joseph Sochowski from Wolsley, Saskatchewan, Canada. After his release he was repatriated to Canada. I assume he was debriefed on his return. Could there be a possibility to find his debriefing report somewhere online?
And another question: Was the separation between sergeants and officers as strict with the RCAF as with the RAF?

Alexander Joseph Sochowski had a brother, Michael, who initially trained with the RCAF as a Pilot but ended up in the Army in the Royal Canadian Regiment as a Private. Service number A118061 and unfortunately Died of wounds caused by a mine at Cassino 30/5/1944. Page 8 on the link below, in his service file, lists his 5 brothers at date of death with Alexander being aged 25, POW No. 1649 Stalag Luft III.

Collection search - SOCHOWSKI, MICHAEL

Application Description

recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca

Hope this is of interest,
Alan.

 

[Nick]

Thanks Alan, every piece of information is welcome.

I have another question. Hr 864 LQ-M was on an operation against Essen on 25 july 1943. The a/c was shot down at 23.35 over Ten Boer in the Netherlands. Some sources say that the bomber stream would cross the Dutch coast at Egmond. That is a good 100 km south of where the plane was actually shot down. Another source says that the bombers entered the Continent over the Frisian Islands, which would correspond with the place of the crash. Has anyone any idea where I could find the actual route? Is there a possibillity that this northerly route was taken as a diversion to mislead the German defence after the first attack of Operation Gomorrah on Hamburg the night before? It would mean so much to find out what the reason was for this crash at this place. There seems no mention that for some reason they strayed of course, but that still may be an explanation. I hope somebody can shed some light here.

 

[AL90]

The raid report for the night of 25 July 1943 is at the link below and runs for about 7 pages. 10 aircraft were shot down by fighters at Egmond on the outbound route with 6 Aircraft as fate unknown (page 5).

Night Raid Reports 25-31st July 1943

lancasterbombersinfo.ipage.com

This is a good resource for all things Bomber Command.
Alan.

 

[Nick]

Thank you very much Alan! This site holds exactly the info I was looking for. I'll keep the site in mind.

 

[Nick]

Hello everyone,
After some distraction I'm back at my desk. New question: What does A.P.I. mean? Navigators were given a lecture on it.

 

[Airframes]

Air Position Indicator. This was used in conjunction with the P.P.I. - Plan Position Indicator.
The pic below shows the installation of both in a Lancaster.

 

[Nick]

Thanks a million! How did it work?

 

[Airframes]

You're welcome.
As to how it (they) work, I'm not really sure. I have a vague idea, which would take a lot of room to explain, and may be way off the mark !
But basically, it used data from the airspeed and magnetic compass to continuously compute a position in the sky, displayed on the relevant dials as lat and long.
The P.P.I. was an instrument that could then project this info onto the Navigator's charts which, when used with info from Gee and the Nav's calculations, allows a reasonably accurate plot of the the aircraft's position along the planned plot line.