Jack Aldridge RAF Bomber Command (Balkan Air Force)

Hello,

I'm looking for information relevant to a family friend who served in Bomber Comman during WW2; his name was Jack Aldridge and I know that he was shot down over Yugoslavia and returned to the Allied by Yugoslav partisans at some point. He was a good friend of my Grandads and I was lucky enough to meet him on a few occasions as a young lad many years ago; I remember his story as being quite significant as the initial group of partisans which rescued him were 'dispatched' by another group who (presumably) wanted to claim the money which they would get for returning Jack to the Allies. I'm afraid that I've no idea of any dates and no clue which squadron he was in; I guess it would have been medium sized Bombers (Marauders/Wellingtons) for this particular front. I've done a bit of digging online and have come across a reference to photographs held by the Imperial War Museum (http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/listing/object-205004180), but other than that, not much at all.

I appreciate that this is a bit of a long short, but I would love to hear from anyone who may have information that's relevant to Jack as I'm determined to find out more about his story.

All the best,

Mark

 

Hi 51MMO

Came across this :

Royal Airforce Association loses aircrew member

COVENTRY branch, Royal Air Force Association, has lost a loyal member with the passing of Jack Aldridge, who served as an aircrew member with Bomber Command during the war. He was also a loyal member of the club.

His funeral was attended by 25 members of the RAFA Association and Club with a salute given by standard bearers of the RAFA, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment and The Worcestershire Regiment to the sounds of Reville and the Last Post.

COVENTRY branch, Royal Engineers Association, holds its next meeting on Thursday at Stoke Ex-services Club, Clay Lane, at 12.30pm. New members are welcome.

I assume this may be the same man, it may be a starting point for you to find out more

TD

TD

 

Thanks TD; I'm pretty confident that's him as he did live in Coventry. I'll contact the Branch to see if they can help me further. Thanks again.

Regards,

Mark

 

Do you know what year this occured?

Not much help, but 37 and 70 (Wellington) Squadrons were stationed in Greece in 1941.

38 Squadron flew sorties into Greece from Fayid in 1941 and were stationed in Greece in 1944.

221 Squadron was stationed in Greece in 1944.

 

Hi Fred - thanks for getting in touch and for the information. Other than obtaining Jack's service records, is there an alternative means of finding out which one of those squadrons he was in? I'm presuming that it must have been one of them as they all operated bombers.

 

The RAF service number cards only have one Jack Aldridge (service number 1667321) - presuming that was his actual first name and not a nickname / diminutive that he used (and in turn was used at his funeral and on photographs at the IWM). Or there are a few J Aldridge entries that also could be him.



I had a quick look at the London Gazette and that number doesn't show up - so the holder was probably an airman aircrew (Sergeant / Flight Sergeant / Warrant Officer) as otherwise his commissioning / promotions would have been gazetted. Similarly, the holder of that number didn't receive any awards.

 

The IWM photo captions suggest that he was a member of the military mission to Yugoslavia - in other words he was deliberately on the ground there rather than having been shot down (although I think that sometimes rescued aircrew found themselves attached to the groups working behind the lines until their evacuation could be arranged).

 

and then you get snippets like this:

http://koti.welho.com/msolanak/BALTIMORE%20PAGE/Martin%20Baltimore%20in%20RHAF%203%20engl.html

In June, the area of operations was expanded to include the whole of Yugoslavia.

In the same month the Squadron had to move again, this time to Pescara airfield, without any interruption in operations. Here the 13th Hellenic Squadron came under 254 Wing R.A.F, as part of the “Balkan Air Force”.

The missions over Yugoslavia were far more dangerous for the aircraft and crews, due to the heavily defended German positions.

This became evident on July 28 1944, when six Baltimores of the Squadron took off to bomb Sarajevo.

Over the target, one of the aircraft FW452”D” with crew Flt Lt Angelidis, W.O Molyvadas, Plt Off Anastasiou and F.Sgt W.Aldridge, got hit by flak and caught fire.

By a twist of fate, this was a stand-by aircraft, replacing another Baltimore which had a malfunction and had to abort the mission.

All the crew bailed out and landed safely. Flt Lt Angelidis and F.Sgt Aldridge both suffered severe burns but escaped capture and with the help of the Yugoslav partisans, managed to return to their unit in October.

W.O Molyvadas and Plt Off Anastasiou were caught by the Germans and spent the rest of the war in Stalag Luft III.

 

Wow - thanks for all that Dave; I really appreciate you getting in touch. The last message is very intriguing as I do remember him saying that he was not due to fly on the mission and that he went as a replacement. It must be him; I've double checked with my Dad and he always knew him as Jack so we have no idea about the W initial above. It's certainly worth pursuing this further as there can't have been Aldridge's that experienced these exact set of circumstances! How could I get more information about Flt Sgt W Aldridge?

 

Cheers Mark - as above, getting his service file is the best bet. But to do that you really need to know who you are looking for. The problem is that Jack is more often than not a nickname, it could be based on his first or middle name being John - but sometimes there is not even that link.

Without his full name plus either his date of birth or his service number you are facing an uphill battle. But you do know a couple of things, you have his surname (good start) plus the Coventry link.

Was he from Coventry or did he live there post-war? If he was born there then it might be possible to find his birth certificate. Logically he would have been born around 1920 - 1922 (give or take) as he was a junior crew member in 1943 - 1944.

Does anyone in your family know when and where he died (assuming he is no longer with us)? Did he have family that might still be in the area??



Like you say, how many RAF members with the surname of Aldridge could possibly have been shot down over Yugoslavia and returned to the Allies via the Partisans? Logically Flight Sergeant W. Aldridge is your Jack Aldridge (but not a concrete fact). An old rafcommands thread mentions him, but with no further info - although nearly all other listed Commonwealth aircrew in 13SQN RHAF have their service numbers recorded in the thread. http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/04741.php

 

As far as I'm aware he always lived in Coventry (unfortunately he passed away a few years ago) and I believe that his family still live in the area - so we're not quite at a dead end. I'll see if my Dad has any of their contact details - will keep you posted.

 

For the fun of it, I downloaded the 13SQN RHAF ORB for July 1944 which is in two parts, basically a listing of operations and a narrative. The files cost around 3 quid each to download, so it is cost effective for one or two files. Another thread describes how it is cheaper to buy the entire ORB for a specific SQN for around 20 quid on CD (great if you are in the UK).

The July ORB descibes the circumstances of the loss of the aircraft containing W. Aldridge but doesn't expand on the info already known from the snippet I posted earlier. His service number is not mentioned.

The SQN ORB from earlier months may mention in the narrative when he joined the SQN and also show his service number as part of that entry. Or ORBs for future months may describe his return to the SQN.

One part I downloaded is less than 2Mb so I will add the pdf file to this post, the other part is nearly 5Mb so I will have to settle for only posting a screenshot of the last couple of pages.

 

Re his first name - Jack is sometimes used in place of John, so on that assumption J as an initial should work on any searches. If there are any indications about his date of birth then I could do an Ancestry search for a J or J W Aldridge born near Coventry.

TD

 

For what it is worth, I did a search for "All" of Aldridge from 1910 - 1925 born directly in Coventry and only came up with one "W" born 1915 with mothers maiden name POULTNEY which would have him being 30 years old at wars end which is not over the hill.

There were also only two other W's being WILLIAM E. & WILLIAM A. however there is not one with the initial J.

There does not seem to be any other children from that ALDRIDGE/POULTNEY marriage during those years.

My sister in laws father was always known as Leonard "Len" however he was born "Arthur Henry"!!!!

June 1915 Aldridge Walter Poultney Coventry

June 1919 Aldridge William E Barry Coventry

June 1920 Aldridge William A Davies Coventry

The only other which fills the criteria on initials from all of Warwickshire however born in Kings Norton is this one:

Sep Qtr 1916 Aldridge William J R S Aldridge Kings N.


Cheers

Geoff

 

Geoff - good work. Could you humour me and do a similar search for J Aldridge (I'm looking for JW - probably John William)

 

Hi Dave,

I searched all births for all births as above for Coventry

Also all births for the country of Warwickshire.

With the results above. However for you I will do all but it may be too many to list.

Also doing J W is not effective as the certificate may have J or John only and not J W.

Let us see what we get.

Cheers

Geoff

 

Dave,

I had a big speech written and when I edited it - Away it all went!

There is no JW Aldridge

There are a million J Aldridge

I thought if he was called Jack he must be John so I searched for John all counties and Boom!

This proved to give a hit..

Qtr June 1922 Aldridge John W Caulton Foleshill

And if my parents education money was not wasted - Foleshill is 4kms NNE of Coventry.

Hopefully he will sit somewhere amongst the puzzle

Cheers

Geoff

 

Thanks Geoff - was it a good speech? (similar thing happened to me the other day, I went to correct some spelling and somehow deleted the entire text instead of just one letter.....)

More supposition on my part (from a couple of sources which I will describe in a mo), but that looks like a brilliant result.


Basically there are not that many hits for the surname of Aldridge in the RAF casualty lists (reproduced in Flight magazine) for 1944 / 45 / 46 – besides deaths, the lists include those personnel missing or wounded etc.

I got two strong possibilities, both for Flight Sergeant – the first was for FSGT WH Aldridge (William Henry Aldridge 1307350) who was listed as MIA, this was changed to KIA post-war and he is recorded on the Malta Memorial.

The other was for a FSGT JW Aldridge who appears in the lists twice in November 1944 – the first time he is listed as Missing but in the next magazine they post a correction and remove his name from that status.

I went through the RAF personnel cards for all those with the Aldridge surname and the initials of JW and got 5 hits. One of them was just JW, one James William and three John William. Two of the John William results received commissions prior to 1944 according to the London Gazette. Which to me leaves the best match as John William Aldridge 1238668.

See attachment for all of the JW Aldridge service number cards.


None of this really explains why the 13SQN RHAF ORB might be showing his first initial as a W – but then again his name shows up as Jack in a few sources without any real back-up for what is essentially a nickname.

 

Just to add something here, my father was christened William John, however he was always known as Jack. Whether that was because there was a number of Johns in the school, work or army platoon I do not know but it would be a way of differentiating between several Johns in the same place.

TD

 

Hopefully this is close to the mark. Just need some clarification from somewhere for the mothers maiden name. to clinch it!

Cheers

Geoff