I am helping a work colleague with finding some info on their Grandfather - I have passed details to them on how to apply for his RAF service record but in the meantime I was wondering if anyone had access to the 75SQN ORBs to see if his name pops up - that would be the most likely unit if he was a Lancaster Bomb Aimer working with a NZ SQN. I tried checking for his name / number in the London Gazette with no joy so I guess he ended the war as a SNCO and never got commissioned. 1585394 George Lionel DEANE, 1917 – 1996 of 12 St Johns Lane Bristol, England - he moved to Rhodesia after he left the RAF George married Joan Doreen Martha DEANE (born POWER) in 1951, at age 34 and they had one child. Joan was born on December 5 1922, in Westbourne, West Sussex, England - this was his second wife after his first wife died in Rhodesia. (From the family - I haven't seen the photo as yet: A photo shows that he had a single wing on his uniform with a B on it, so he was a Bomb Aimer and he spent time in both Canada and Rhodesia - he flew with a NZ Lancaster SQN) He gets mentioned in a list of personnel that attended Pilot training in Canada (Men of 36 Sevice Flying Training School, Penhold, Alberta) - that course appeared to start around March 1943 at 36 Service Flying Training School, Penhold, Alberta Him & around 10 other blokes were removed from the course – I imagine that they had a surplus of pilot trainees in Canada and a shortage of Bomb Aimer trainees in Rhodesia so off they went whether they liked it or not. If he went to Rhodesia for Bomb Aimer training I presume that he would have gone to Number 24 Bombing, Gunnery and Navigation School (BGTS) at Moffat, Gwelo which was equipped with Battle, Oxford and Anson aircraft
Nobody? I am sure that there used to be someone on here that specialised in the wartime history of 75SQN and the RNZAF involvement
This site has crew lists and what appears to be transcribed ORBs for the wartime years: 75(nz)squadron EDIT: I had a look through some of the listings, but without an index it's hard going. A post on the site asking for a name check might be easier.
Thanks mate - for some reason I couldn't locate that site (I obviously wasn't trying hard enough). It is a great resource but I had a look at the most likely places for this guy's name with no joy. I'm taking your advice and emailing the site administrator to see if he has any info that might help. cheers Dave
Thanks for trying - I had the same result looking at the ORBs for all of 1944 - most of which seemed to list personnel movements and I didn't see his name. I'm starting to think that I'm snookered until the family get his personnel file - which really should be the starting point of any research once the basic details are known anyway. I was just hoping to get a headstart on it. But then again I'm still waiting for the work colleague to get me a copy of the photo they are referring to showing him in uniform.
Upside for me is that it brought to light a very interesting web site. Having researched a couple of stories passed down through my family, *everything* should be taken with a pinch of salt until proven.
Apologies for getting to this chat late - I note the comment about a search facility - and it does exist! The majority of the archive pages - crew op histories a/c histories RoH etc are presented on full width pages for the sake of readability. However you just need to go to the ‘Blog’ link in the top menu and you will see that on the right hand side, I think under the view counter and no. of followers, there is a very good site wide search box- surname or service number works best Sadly Dave, George didn’t fly with 75(NZ) Squadron Simon
