It is little known, but the nucleus of the re-forming 215 Squadron destined for the Middle East in 1942, was to a large extent, made up from experienced crews pulled away from the 214 Squadron beginning sometime in the fall of 1941 and continuing untill the spring of 1942. Among those who left the 214 were some of the highest officers and seasoned crews of the Squadron. The void created on the 214 was then filled by largely green crews straight from training. Although no one has done a study to determine the true impact this had on the 214, the very day one of these first groups left the squadron it experienced a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. On 01/04/1942 a group of the veterans and senior officers of 214 Sqn lifted off the runway enroute to Egypt to join the 215 Squadron in the Middle East, only hours later another group of the mostly green crews that were left on 214 lifted off from Stradishall heading to operations over Germany. Little could the first group know, but by the end of the day 41 of their former crewmates would never be comming home. Of the group that headed to Germany, 7 Wellington's and their entire crews were lost. Only one crew member of the 42 survived. Below is an exceptional and very rare photo of one of the first groups to leave the 214 believed to have been taken in early April 1942.

This photo was taken outside Haverhill Railway Station, the nearest large station to RAF Stradishall. This has been confirmed by residents of Haverhill who Colin Burningham contacted through the local newspaper, the Haverhill Echo.

It seems fairly certain that it was taken on 11 March 1942 when 2 crews travelled to 15OTU en route to 215 Squadron.

SEE CREWS AND LOSSES for Wellington Mark I C ??Smith
SEE CREWS AND LOSSES for Wellington (model unknown) ??Williams

The photographer was FS William Gordon Venner and four people have been confirmed as in the photograph :
Plt/Off R Fellowes, Sgt C T Enright, Sgt A N Jenkins and Sgt B G Brown.

The other crew members in this photo are believed to be :
FS J E Williams, FS C M Gills, Sgt G Hill, Sgt J A Dillow, Sgt F B Kershaw, Sgt H Smith, and Plt/Off C Logan.

Source Colin Burningham and residents of Haverhill, Suffolk

Looking at the 'photo album' pages on the site the other day I noticed in "Album 4" the photo of "Lonesome Lola". The caption says it's not known what sqn this 'Wellington' was from. My immediate observation and thus comment is that it's not actually a Wellington at all, but a Lancaster! 0/10. Then, and somewhat coincidentally, I've just picked up the latest copy of 'Flypast' magazine (September 2005's) in which there's an article about Lancaster W4964, 'WS-J' of 9 Sqn which flew 106 ops. Towards the end of the article there's a section about the raid on the Tirpitz on 15 September 1944 by 9 and 617 Sqns, in which it refers to: "9 Squadron's Sqn Ldr Pooley in 'WS-L', "Lonesome Lola"". And a copy of a 9 Sqn Battle Order on the same page (albeit as at 5 October 1944), gives 'WS-L' as LL845. I'm therefore not 100% certain as there could have been two Lancs with the same name of course; and LL845 could have been lost and replaced by a new 'WS-L' between September and October '44, but maybe that's actually the true identity of the 'Wellington' in your photo: Lancaster LL845, 'WS-L', of 9 Sqn.

Footnote: Regarding 'Lola', regret to have to confirm that I was right re the Lanc identity. Just after sending you the e-mail I found reference to it (and more photos) in a number of other books on Lancs and Lancaster squadrons. In fact it was rather a special aircraft as it flew 97 Ops.

Roger Audis of 9 Squadron writes:
I have researched your photograph and details and I can confirm that the photograph is Lancaster Mk1 LL845 WS”L” “Lonesome Lola” of IX Squadron based at RAF Bardney (5 Group) in Lincolnshire.
LL845 replaced Lancaster Mk111 W5010 WS”L” which failed to return from an operation to Leipzig on the 19/20th February 1944.
LL845 undertook its first operation with IX Sqn on the 15/16th March 1944 when P/O Clark and crew (including F/O Matthews) took it to Stuttgart, this was P/O Clarke’s 10th operation.
The artwork on the photograph shows 8 bombs which indicates that it had carried out 8 operations, my records show that the 8th operation was carried out on the 10/11th April 1944 when Ft/Sgt Horne and crew took it to Tours. The 9th operation was carried out on the 11/12th April when P/O Clark and crew (including F/O Matthews) took it to Aachen . Assuming the art work (bombs) were added/painted after each operation the photograph must have been taken on the 11th April 1944 prior to P/O Clark undertaking the operation to Aachen. LL845 operated with IX Sqn until the end of the war.
On the 15th September 1944 S/L Pooley and crew flew it to Yagodnik in Russia for the first “Tallboy” operation against the German Battleship “Tirpitz” by IX and 617 Sqn’s. W4964 WS”J” another IX Squadron Lancaster was the only aircraft to obtain a direct hit on the “Tirpitz” during this operation, this caused the Germans to take it further South to Tromso hopefully for repair, however this became within range of Lancaster’s flying from a forward base in Scotland if the mid upper gunner was taken out and extra long range petrol tanks were inserted into the fuselage.
Two more “Tallboy” operations were undertaken by IX and 617 on the 29th October and finally on the 12th November 1944 when it was capsized. LL845 took part on the 29th October operation but was iced up and could not take off on the 12th November.
LL845 carried out its last wartime operation on the 25th April 1945 when F/L McIntosh and crew took it to Berchtesgaden .
On the 12th May 1945 15 IX Sqn Lancaster’s including LL845 took part in Operation “Exodus”, their cargo this time was not bombs but was 336 Ex POW’s who were successfully repatriated to the UK.

SOURCE: Carol & John Edwards, Ian Hunt and Roger Audis - Historian 9 Squadron Association

In one of lifes little coincidences, awhile ago I received a letter from Jennifer who had contacted me from New Zeland regarding her father and immediately afterward (in fact the very next email ) I also received a letter from Kevin Green in Calgary Canada. Kevin had purchased a box of papers on Ebay, within which was a letter from a chap named F/O Baumfield written to a young lady in Canada during the war. Out of curiosity, or perhaps destiny, he decided to see if he could track down the writer and his search ultimately led him to the 214 Squadron web site. Unbelievably, F/O Baumfield was none other than Jennifer's father!!! What forces were at work to bring two total strangers from the absolute opposite ends of the earth together at precisely the same moment in time and precisely the same place. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. After an absence of sixty years the letter has now found its way back home.

This was taken at Pershore in February 1942, possibly after the completion of an OTU course. It is signed on the back as follows :

First crew - TEL Palmer, ??, W Edge, ?Moody, ?Webster, ??.
Second crew - HJ Skelly, N Catt (on photograph but no signature), G Heath, D Hutchinson, A Hutton, J Wintrup.
Third crew - L Curtis, J Hurst, T Pearman, J Fletcher, G Littlejohn, J McLeod.

Skelly, Palmer, Heath, Littlejohn and Pearman all died in crashes.
Catt, Hutchinson, Hutton and Wintrup became POW's.

Avro Lincoln RF453

SOURCE: Dave Gambold son of John Gambold.

RAF Upwood Rugby team 1952
taff powell-taff lewis-bill low-john gambold- smithy-?-?-jock corbett-paddy tony sloe-P.A.-don harman-taff howells ?
Gerry Micklewright is third from the right in the middle row of the photograph

Can anyone else help with these names?

SOURCE: Dave Gambold son of John Gambold and Ian Micklewright (son) of Gerry Micklewright

Marc Stainier and crew. Marc is first on the left and Angus Cameron is last on the right. Can anyone name the other crew members?

SOURCE: Lt/Col Jean-Marie Stainier (son of Marc Stainier)

Nothing is known about the Photo below, anyone recognize it?

SOURCE: Family of F/Sgt John Stelling

Murray Peden has identified a few people in the above photo, which was taken about March 1944.
In the row immediately behind the first seated row the second man from the left is the then Flt/Lt Jack Furner (later Air Vice-Marshall Furner)
Murray Peden is third from the left in the same row.
In the centre of the photo are Wing Commander Desmond McGlinn and Group Captain T.C. Dickens

The same picture as above identified as 214 Squadron personnel in front of Fortress SR386 BU-N, Oulton 1944
Source : Gerhard Heilig

Source : Gerhard Heilig

Group photo RAF Marham 1959/1960 (click on image for a larger view - this is a large file and will take time to load. Once the image is loaded in another window click on it to enlarge it)

Source : Dennis Gilliland (fifth from the left in the back row)

Victor Mark 1 course 24 November 1965
All except Lemmy Tanner and Bob Barker ended up on 214 Squadron

Source : John Brown

Les Bostock writes : It was the occasion of a visit to Blickling by a film crew to shoot scenes on location for the film 'The Wicked Lady'. The officers had entertained them so the sergeants not to be outdone followed suit soon after. Pat Roc one of the female leads is looking adoringly, (I wish) into my eyes as she is about to sign a crew photograph. We had quite a lengthy chat, given the circumstances. Immediately behind me is Harry Richardson and just behind him is Pip Piper, our top gunner. The remainder of the crew that were present are lost in the crowd.

Source : Les Bostock

Squadron photo taken in 1942
Click on photo for a larger version

Source : Mark Gibbs (son of Fg/Off Jack Arthur Giggs)

1942 Eric Cooper is in the middle of the back row. Does anyone recognise any one else in the photo?

Source : Eric Hallam

1941 Eric Cooper is third from left middle row. Does anyone recognise any one else in the photo?

Source : Eric Hallam

The picture of a Wellington surrounded by crew signatures above was presented to Wing Commander Nuttall, the CO of 214 Squadron when he was due to leave in August 1940. However he had to stay for another month until his replacement could take over. So, when it was finally presented to him in September 1940, the picture had the signature of Flt/Lt Craigie Halkett who was killed on August 1940.

Source : Kareth Paterson (daughter of Plt/Off Harold Paterson) and Sheila Scott Byrne (daughter of Wg/Cdr Peter Doig Scott)