Flight Lieut J.R.Talbot Test Pilot R.A.F.O

Hi - Many thanks for the advice about email. I will speak with my mother about him and see what information she has. She was 6 in 1945 but she might know if he had children and whether she knows where they might be.

 

Dont forget about his service records

TD

 

I may be wrong but I have my doubts as to whether James Talbot will have a service record that covers WW2.
From previous posts and attachments he served in the Fleet Air Arm in the 1930s, which was then part of the RAF, not coming under Admiralty control until 1939. The Reserve of Air Force Officers (RAFO) was a pre-war Reserve of those who had completed a four year commission in the RAF/FAA. On the outbreak of war most of these were then commissioned into the RAF/RAFVR.
James Talbot joined Handley Page in 1937 as Assistant Test Pilot becoming their Chief Test Pilot in 1941. Though nominally a Flight Lieutenant in the RAFO I think it quite likely that he would have been classified as a civilian in a Reserved Occupation, in which case there will be no WW2 Service Record. However it may be that he was called up and then posted as 'attached Handley Page'.
However the only way to check is to apply and see what comes back.

Tim

 

You could be right there Tim

Checking his probate
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966, 1973-1995
Name: James Richard Talbot
Death Date: 2 Dec 1945
Death Place: Hertfordshire, Hertford, England
Probate Date: 13 May 1946
Registry: London, England


England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007
Name: James R Talbot
Death Age: 33
Birth Date: abt 1912
Registration Date: Dec 1945
Registration district: Watford
Inferred County: Hertfordshire
Volume: 3a
Page: 1293

There's some trees on Ancestry that include him, but nothing specific to help this thread

TD

 

Dom - Your Post 21 - Article attached to Post 4 says he left widow and three children.

Tim

 

Headstone of his Brother in Law
also buried in the same churchyard
St Marys White Waltham

 

You are right Tim. I will ask Mum this evening about her cousins to find out if she knows where they are. It would be amazing to reunite them with some artefacts of their father if that is possible.

 

Yes. He was my father and the Hermes crashed on my christening day in 1945 when I was just four months old. Our family are southern Irish but both James and his younger brothers John and Kitchener all served in WW11. The latter were both medics and saw service in the Middle East. During the war James and my mother lived in Boxmoor, Herts not that distant from Radlett where Handley zpage were based. I can tell you much much more if you are interested ! May I ask what has aroused your curiosity ? My best wishes James

 

Please look at my reply. JamesATrobertjamesart.com
Who was your grandfather - my guess is Kitchener ?

 

Details of B-i-L Robert Chippindall Dafforn
Battle of Britain London Monument - P/O R C Dafforn
6ft 6 inches, must have been a tight squeeze for headroom in the cockpit.

 

In fact uncle Bob, my mother’s brother, was exactly 2 metres tall so a tad under 6’7” and in his flying boots 6’8”

As you say how he got into a Spitfire or Hurricane was a mystery to everyone. His younger brother, Major Hargrave Dafforn RA. MC was 6’5” and their father, Edgar, only 6’4” !! My mother was chaperoned everywhere by them and all would be suitors had a formidable gateway to pass through...0nly my father managed to slip through the net but he was only 5’10”

Their oldest sister, Pat, was married to Air Marshall Sir Douglas Macfadyen. She died last year at the age of 105 !

 

Chetwynd-Talbot....I recognise the family name....owners of Alton Towers in the line of the Earls of Shrewsbury.

Happy memories of taking our young boys there in the early 1960s....nice rowing lake. ..picked up a brochure which gave the history of the place....... visits at a time when the site had not been too heavily commercialised....it was not a funfair in those days but had beautiful gardens which was joy to walk through.

 

James thank you for the update

Any information you would like to share would be most interesting


regards
Clive

 

Harry. Thank you but not the same family. Chetwynd is a family Christian name - I had a first cousin inDundalk with the same and it goes back a while. We have nothing to do with the Shrewsbury lot having come to Ireland and settled in the pale about 900 years ago, apparently ! When were you in the RA? My uncle Hargrave was badly wounded at Dunkirk and spent the rest of the war in various German pow camps - he lost about half his body weight, some 120 lbs,

 

James.....thanks for your response,I thought that you might have a connection with Alton Towers....regarding the aviation query,I thought when Radlett was thrown up,it would be connected with HP.

Interesting aviation detail thrown up on your father and the Hermes prototype.

Edit.....while researching a crash of an HCU Halifax at a location where I attended school.I have picked up a photograph of your father,as chief test pilot, air testing W 7773, a standard B Mark 11 Series 1,a development which HP attempted to resolve the accident rate of the B Mark 11 in 1942.

I will scan it and post it....you may have seen it before.

 

Harry I have not and many thanks indeed. My mail address is jamesATrobertjamesart.com
By the way where do you live and may I ask what is your interest? On Monday next
it will be the 74th anniversary of that terrible accident which deeply saddens us...
James

 

James....... will contact you directly, as requested.