RAF Form 543 - Help Needed Please

Discussion in 'Service Records' started by Alan Lonsdale, Jan 29, 2020.

  1. Alan Lonsdale

    Alan Lonsdale Member

    Hi All,

    I have recently dug out my grandfathers RAF service record, and there is only so much you can find on the internet. I am desperate for some answers to solve some family mysteries. Can anyone please help?

    I am struggling with Anything circled in red, either because I don't know what they mean, such as D2E, D2F, B, X, C & G3X in the reason column, or I am struggling to read the handwriting, such as the large circled part in the middle when he was admitted to hospital with bad teeth.

    Does any one know what 33 Base was? Possibly 33 Maintenance Unit (MU), Lyneham?

    Finally, on the second pic are the training courses my grandad did. I cannot read the first two. Any ideas? Att (attended?) LIIB????


    Many thanks

    Alan
     

    Attached Files:

  2. PeteT

    PeteT Senior Member

    33 Base was a Heavy Conversion Unit with its HQ at Waterbeach; it controlled Mepal, Waterbeach and Witchford
     
  3. Alan Lonsdale

    Alan Lonsdale Member

    Waterbeach! Many thanks! :)
     
  4. RAFCommands

    RAFCommands Senior Member

  5. Alan Lonsdale

    Alan Lonsdale Member

    Many thanks.
     
  6. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Bit in red could be "Transferred ??? Yatesbury."
    Don't know middle bit.

    RAF Yatesbury not far from Calne, Wilts.
     
  7. Alan Lonsdale

    Alan Lonsdale Member

    It could well be Yatesbury. It certainly look like it.

    I was told a story that my grandad had some bad teeth so they just took them (all of his teeth?) out. So perhaps that's where this happened?
     
  8. PeteT

    PeteT Senior Member

    Last edited: Jan 29, 2020
    Harry Ree likes this.
  9. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    I knew Yatesbury well from the early 1950s when I attended a course there on the bombing radar, H2S4A. The place was always from the start and during the war, a technical training school for wireless and radar.

    The adjacent Great War grass airfield was an elementary flying school during both wars and prewar WW2. (Guy Gibson did his elementary flying training there in about 1937 when the Bristol Aircraft Company had a contract for flying training from the AM).

    Cannot remember a hospital there during my era,it had the standard Sick Quarters.During the war Yatesbury was the location of a large number of technical schools with an appropriate airmen student strength.The other point is did Yatesbury house a specialised medical unit?

    Your Grandfather from his qualifications,I would say was an Instrument Fitter or Mechanic,I would say which reflects his courses on the Mark X1V Bombsight and the Mark 11 SAB (Stablised Automatic Bombsight) and Compass gear.(Certainly the leading edge of bombsights developed during the war although the mode of bombing by night saw only No 617 Squadron, fitted with the later Mark 11A SAB which it was claimed to be capable of precision bombing from 20.000 feet with an error of 80 yards.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2020
  10. Alan Lonsdale

    Alan Lonsdale Member

  11. Alan Lonsdale

    Alan Lonsdale Member

    You are correct. He was an instrument fitter. He worked on Wellington III's & Lancaster Mark II's at 115 Squadron, and on Sunderlands in Coastal Command. Most of his training courses were at 12 School of Technical Training, which the internet tells me was at RAF Melksham.

    Would you have any idea what the training courses were on the 17th of November 1943 & 10 May 1944? It looks like LIIB for both. Lancaster II conversion courses? (By June 1944 the Lancaster II's were replaced by the Mk 1's & Mk III's)
     
  12. RAFCommands

    RAFCommands Senior Member

    It is LTTB

    Early war with few trade test centres the first letter was usually the location eg London but by 1944 with so ,many trade schools the abbreviation had polarised to CTTB and LTTB for Central Trade Testing Board and Local Trade Testing Board.

    Ross
     
  13. Alan Lonsdale

    Alan Lonsdale Member

    Ahhhh. That makes sense. Many thanks!
     

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