Men of Worth Project

Hi Everyone,

I run a historical research project called 'Men of Worth' which is based around the men and women from Keighley and the Worth Valley who served in wartime. Our website is: Men of Worth and although we've been concentrating on WW1 records because of the fast approaching centenary in 2014, we're still looking for any information on people from our area who served during WW2. Feel free to take a look at the site and see if anyone we have listed matches anyone you might be researching too. You never know.
I live in Oakworth and we have a local memorial to six Canadian airmen who perished when their Wellington Bomber BK387 crashed into a local hillside in January 1944 whilst on a training exercise from RAF OCU Ossington. We have a memorial stone close to the site and hold a service of remembrance each year on the Sunday nearest to the anniversary date. Details of that and some of the men are here: Oakworth Village - Tewitt Lane Memorial

Almost finished introducing myself...
I am also researching the ROF at Steeton in West Yorkshire, which amongst other things made several million 20mm Hispano-Suiza cartridges which were sent for for filling at Thorpe Arch (ROF 11). In 2009 I successfully applied for a grade two listing for three defensive pillboxes which were under threat from a planning application by a housing developer. One of these pillboxes is a modified two storey type 24, one of only four known example still in existence in the country, so any information about the ROF would be much appreciated, particularly about the people (mostly ladies) who worked there from 1941 to its closure in 1945. I have an educational wiki website about ROF Steeton here: ROF Steeton Dump Enjoy looking, and I hope that me posting all these links is OK with the admins. They're all amateur research websites with a genuine desire to educate and gather information to preserve our wartime history.

...and rest.

 

Welcome to the forum

regards
Clive

 

Andy

Welcome to the forum.
Thank you for remembering those six RCAF airmen.

 

Thank you both for the welcome. Those six men will never be forgotten. yes, they were Canadian but they are now ours too.

 

Hello and welcome

Lesley

 

Welcome to the forum, thats an interesting site you have there, have bookmarked it for reference.

 

Andy
when you get around to WW2 - don't forget Charley Bailey from Keighley - he drove a Churchill Tank in "A" Squadron 145th RAC which was devolved from the 8th Battalion DoW's in 1941 and served in North Africa and Italy as did many others in the regiment
Cheers

 

Andy
Welcome on board

 

Welcome to the forum

Regards

Keith

 

Many thanks to everyone for the great welcome!

Andy
when you get around to WW2 - don't forget Charley Bailey from Keighley - he drove a Churchill Tank in "A" Squadron 145th RAC which was devolved from the 8th Battalion DoW's in 1941 and served in North Africa and Italy as did many others in the regiment
Cheers
Tom, I've added the information to a new page for Charley here:

Men of Worth - Charley Bailey

Naturally we add information as and when we can get it. The database will be updated as we move things across from the current website. If you have anything else about Charley then I'd be only too pleased to add it to his page. Many thanks indeed!

 

Andy
Thank you for adding Charley to your list- Charley was our driver in Sgt. Trevor William's Tank in #5 troop
Trevor was from Bradford - Harry Grey - the Gunner was from Halifax and so we were surrounded by Yorkshire men- FIVE cousins all Barkers were in the Squadron...
Cheers

 

Hello and welcome. Enjoy.

 

Hello, Andy and welcome to the forum. I've been taking a look at your 'Men of Worth' website and it's a very impressive piece of work. Would I be right in thinking that people can register and then add details to any of the men listed on it?

Jonathan.

 

Hello, Andy and welcome to the forum. I've been taking a look at your 'Men of Worth' website and it's a very impressive piece of work. Would I be right in thinking that people can register and then add details to any of the men listed on it?

Jonathan.

Absolutely. You register and I confirm you when I see it (that's just to stop spammers) then editing is open to you for all pages on the site.
When things are added I receive a notification and check the details and add further information if I can. Seems to work OK so far...
I'm in the process of having a database written so that all people have to do is fill in an online form and upload documents or pictures and it automatically gets added to the database. I'm hoping that a grant we're going for will allow us to create an all singing all dancing website that will be able to do a lot more than that.

Many thanks for the kind comments by the way.

 

Posted again here is I did hot see there were two intro threads.

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the forum from Australia.

The Australian War Memorial's ww2 Nominal Roll can be searched for places of birth for all services.

If you are interested?

Go here: WW2 Nominal Roll

Keighley comes up with 26 records.

Or check the thread I started on this forum:

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/searchi...tml#post413986

For WW1 you can check here on Mapping our Anzacs:

Mapping our Anzacs

Or the thread here on WW2Talk:

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/prewar/...tml#post288010

These are for Keighley or you may have peripheral villages that may be included. This will also list there service records "FREE" if they are digitised.

Quote:
Born or enlisted in Keighley, England

Carr, William Henry
Catlin, Sydney Heber
Fort, Charles
Gill, Charles Stanfield
Green, Leo
Horwood, John
Mason, David
McDonnell, John
McDonnell, Michael
Morrison, Edgar Greenwood
Sharpe, Fred
Smith, Fred
Snowden, Frank Ernest Hargreaves
Spencer, Bernard Eric
Stanley, Arthur Vincent
Wallace, Clement Cecil
Whipp, Harry
Wright, John
Cheers

Geoff

Edit: Forgot to add, that once you have a number for the ww1 lads, you can go to this database and see a compilation of his details however this site is copyright. Contact details of the owner are on the website.

AIF Database Home Page

 

Sorry for the delay in replying. Many thanks for this information Spidge, it's a great link, I have also found another man who is from Haworth, which is also part of our area. Amazing that you can download their entire service record for free. It's a shame we couldn't do the same with our online records here in the UK.

 

Sorry for the delay in replying. Many thanks for this information Spidge, it's a great link, I have also found another man who is from Haworth, which is also part of our area. Amazing that you can download their entire service record for free. It's a shame we couldn't do the same with our online records here in the UK.


Thanks Andy,

Did you already know of some of these lads?

Amazing that you can download their entire service record for free. It's a shame we couldn't do the same with our online records here in the UK.

This certainly puts us in an envious posdition.

Cheers

Geoff

 

Welcome to the forum Andy - enjoy!

Best,

Steve.

 

Thanks Andy,

Did you already know of some of these lads?

Geoff

Hi Geoff, no, I didn't have any of these names. We should be able to do all sorts with them though because it's possible they will all have embarkation records on Ancestry.

I'm now wondering if there are any online archives of local Australian newspapers that might have reports of their deaths or injuries, medals etc as they do here in Keighley. Ours is even alphabetically archived by soldiers names.

Kind regards,
Andy.