Les davenport - 7 squadron raf / pow 1941

Hi Ian,

Photograph sent to your email address.

Regards,

Dave

 

Hi there
My father F/LT R.W Keen was also one of the crew of W7931 on the night it was shot down. I've attached a couple of shots from his Logs which might be of interest to the relatives of those involved. He eventually ended up in Stalag Luft III. I have a list of others who were in his hut in the North Compound, and would be interested if anyone recognizes the names

F/O L.M Whitton (Kilmarnock, UK)
F/O A.C BEALES (New Malden, UK)
F/LT Derek A Thomas (Durham, UK)
Capt AC Warner (Natal, SA)
H.C.S Hamley (Sheffield, UK)
F/O J.W ROCH (Sheffield)
Jack Haydon (Melbourne, AUS)
F/O A.C Smith (Reading, UK)

 

Stanley William Bert Hewitt was my Father. He died in early January 1985, in West Wales General Hospital, Carmarthen. His wife, my Mother, is still alive, living independently and driving. She will be 96 in May this year.

I have his POW Log Book from WWII, which contains entries by a number of fellow PoWs, including an extract from Omar Khyam written at Stalag 357, Thorn, Poland by what looks like a R E J Davenport. There are pictures too, and a map showing his journey through the different POW camps.

 

Sergeant Stanley William Bert Hewitt (1920 - 1985) was my father.

I have his PoW wartime log, some formal squadron photographs (with aircraft), his Stalag Luft 3 dog tag (Nr 162), some 'window' and a bayonet and belt that he liberated at the end of the war. He was a wireless operator in 106 Squadron (not '7' squadron) and was shot down over Essen at 0215 hrs on 11 April 1942. He knew many of those who would go on to become Dambusters (Guy Gibson was his squadron commander when he was shot down). There is a picture of him with Danny Walker & Bob Hutchinson in The Men who Breached the Dams by Alan W Cooper, published by William Kimber & Co in 1982 and reprinted in 1983, ISBN 0-7183-0308-3. I have an original of the photograph, which has been cropped from landscape to portrait in the book. When I have a moment, I'll go through the log to see what names are contained therein. I came across these items recently (though I knew that they existed), whilst going through my Mother's possessions, following her death earlier this year, at 104! As a point of interest, he was caught up in the Gresse incident, just before the end of the war, but wasn't injured, fortunately.

 

Deleted.