His duty, fearlessly and nobly done.

On the night of 30^th January 1944 P/O Norman Joseph Lyford RAAF, twenty-two year old pilot of 44 Squadron Lancaster ND514, was last seen by his crew-mates holding the aircraft steady to enable them to bale-out after being attacked by a night-fighter about 15 minutes short of Berlin.

In the early hours of the previous morning (29^th January) accredited photographers had visited RAF Dunholme Lodge to record F/Lt A Moore and 'the crew of “C – Charlie” on their return from their ninth time to “The Big City”.....Berlin, to complete their tour of operations in Lancaster ND514. The photograph appeared on the front page of the London Sunday Graphic newspaper on 30^th January.

Also appearing in that issue of the Sunday Graphic was a photograph of two young men standing beside the aircraft in which they had thankfully returned from a sortie to the German capital the previous night/ earlier that morning, having landed at 8.26hrs. P/O Norman Lyford RAAF, his B/A F/Sgt Owen and their crew-mates were fortunate to have survived a very near miss from a flak shell which caused significant damage to LM434 – serial-F.

Squadron records noted - 'Damage to aircraft caused by heavy flak. Port wing tip shot off. Port fin damaged. Holes in starboard mainplane, port mainplane, port inner engine cowling and starboard elevator trimming tab.'

P/O Lyford looks as though he'd prefer to be anywhere other than in the limelight. Having arrived back at Dunholme Lodge around breakfast time crews were thankful for a stand-down that (Saturday) evening.

Norman Lyford's account - 'We were rather badly shot up by flak over the target, but this did not affect the mission.'

LM434 was u/s for the next operation on Sunday evening, 30^th January and the Lyford crew took ND514, no longer required by F/Lt Bert Wright and crew.

About fifty miles from the 'Big City' on the way in, ND514 sustained an attack from a night-fighter causing such damage that P/O Lyford ordered his crew to bale-out. None of the crew members were injured during the attack.

The standard tactic for Luftwaffe night-fighters with conventional, forward-firing cannon and machine-guns was to attack a bomber from below and behind -‘von unten hinten’, firing at the fuselage to disable the gunners and other crew members. That some night-fighters were equipped with ‘schrage-muzik’ upward-firing cannon was still unknown at this time. Their method of attack was from underneath, aiming to hit a Lancaster’s wing tanks between the two starboard engines ‘and pull away immediately without firing at the crew at all’.

So it is possible that ND514 suffered a 'schrage-muzik' attack from below into the wing area housing the fuel tanks, causing a wing and engine fire.

Lyford held the aircraft under control long enough for his six crew-mates to safely exit the Lancaster.

Wreckage of ND514 came down at Geisenhorst, a tiny rural hamlet, SW of the settlement of Dreetz just south of the Rhinkanal-in-Dreetz, some 44 miles from Berlin, about 12 minutes Lancaster flying time. Norman Lyford's remains were recovered and buried in the parish cemetery at Dreetz on 4^th February.

Local witnesses considered the wreckage to have been that of a twin-engine aircraft, the RAF Investigation Unit's later interpretation - possibly a Mosquito. Were only two engines and scattered wreckage found in the vicinity of Geisenhorst? A likely explanation – a catastrophic explosion of fuel in the wing-tanks, and the bomb-load. Official findings suggested that the nature of the loss of ND514 was such that P/O Lyford's death would have been instantaneous.

Whatever happened, gallant Norman Lyford had again looked after his crew, ordering them out and staying at his post until they had made their escape from the stricken aircraft. All six of his crew-mates survived to become Prisoners of War. 

 

F/E               Sgt. A. Semple

Nav              Sgt. J.R. Tijou

B/A               F/Sgt. G. Owen

W/op A/g      Sgt. R.G. Keen

M/u               Sgt. H. Marrs

R/g               Sgt. J.A. Wainwright

Norman Joseph Lyford, from Pymble, Sydney, New South Wales

Tribute to 'the bravest man we never knew'.

Seventy years on from the 'Battle of Berlin' and acts of selfless heroism continue to come to light.

Sincere condolences to the family and friends of Donald Charles Bell, ex- flight engineer who served with 625 and 103 Squadrons, RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War, and passed away in Canada at the end of December last.

I hope the family won't mind me referring to Donald's obituary notice, which includes a tribute to 'the bravest man we never knew – Frank Law '.

Sgt D C Bell joined Jim Ives's crew at 1662 Conversion Unit, RAF Blyton and went forward with them to RAF Kelstern where the crew was soon split up and certain personnel dispersed here and there to other 1Group squadrons. Donald Bell, a married man with a young son and another on the way, was posted to 103 Squadron where he flew initially with P/O Len Young between 'Black Thursday', December 16^th/17^th 1943 and 20^th/21^st January 1944 when Bell joined a pilot who had lost his own crew, casualties while filling in as 'spare bods' in other crews.

His new skipper was Glaswegian Frank Law who had graduated as an 'Arnold Scheme' sergeant pilot of class 42G in August 1942. Sgt Law's and Ives's paths crossed several times during continuation training in the UK, flying exercises together on more than one occasion. Jim's B/A Geoff Yates remembered Law as being of slight build, dark-haired, very serious and 'not given to smiles', but it seems that Law and Ives got on well.

F/Sgt Law's 'assembled' crew settled into ops – this was at the height of the 'Battle of Berlin'.

Navigator Sgt Ken Flowers joined F/Sgt Frank Law for a consistent run of operations from 5^th January 1944:-

5^th/6th January in JB745 – Stettin

20^th/21^st January in JB278 – Berlin

21^st/22^nd January in JB278 – Magdeburg

27^th/28^th January in ND408 – Berlin

28^th/29^th January ND408 – Berlin

30^th/31^st January in ND417 – Berlin

15^th/16^th February in ND408 – Berlin

19^th/20^th February in ND408 – Leipzig.

On 19^th February 1944 P/O Frank Law's crew appeared on the Battle Order for an operation against Leipzig. The crew of Lancaster ND408 PM-T was:-

W/O F Law – pilot, from Glasgow

Sgt Donald Charles Bell - flight engineer, from Laleham, Surrey

F/Sgt Kenneth William Flowers – navigator, from Forest Gate, Essex

Sgt Cecil John Daniel Baldwin - air bomber, from Shoreditch, London

Sgt Ronald Sydney Johnstone - wireless operator/air gunner, from Newcastle-under-Lyne, Staffs

Sgt Albert Henry Daines - mid-upper gunner, from Sunbury-on-Thames

Sgt Alfred John Bristow - rear gunner, from Bethnal Green, London.

ND408 took off from Elsham Wolds at 23.25 and was one of a bomber force of 823 aircraft detailed from which 78 aircraft were lost.

Initial reports from the German Authorities [Totenliste 204] coming to 103 Squadron via the International Red Cross Committee outlined that a squadron aircraft had been shot down on 20^th February 1944. Three members of the crew were named, together with two unknowns who had been buried on 21^st February 1944 in the Cemetery at Atteln, a village 9 miles SSE of Paderborn. Two other members of the crew had been taken prisoner.

In December 1947, nearly four years after the event, investigations by No. 24 Section, No. 4 Missing Research and Enquiry Unit RAF (Germany) reported the circumstances of the loss of ND408 - that at approximately 06.00hrs on 20^th February 1944 a RAF Lancaster crashed in a field just south of the village of Atteln. The aircraft had apparently been hit by flak which had damaged its tail and adversely affected the steering. The aircraft had not burnt and the bodies of five airmen were recovered. Two of the crew had parachuted safely from the aircraft and had been taken prisoner. Those who died were buried in the village cemetery.

A different version of the loss has now come to light from Donald Bell's family, it transpires that four members of the crew had been killed instantly when ND408 was hit by fire from a night-fighter on the way in to the target. 'The Lancaster limped on (on) fire and barely under control. The bravest man we will never know – Frank Law, a Scot, ordered any surviving crew to “get out” as he fought and held the crippled Lancaster level so Don and the bomb-aimer (Cecil Baldwin) could parachute to safety, then he rode it into the ground.'

A survivor's account of what happened.

As the quotation goes - 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'

LAC (later P/O) Frank Law - 

Radio interview with Nick Coffer On BBC three counties radio talking about the book and research of 100 squadron

Does Life Hold Any More in Store? John Proctor (Me) talking to Nick Coffer on 3 counties radio about my book.
100 Squadron 625 626 Squadrons WW2 RAF, Bomber Command Can You Help With Names in my research http://www.jcproctor.co.uk

The Control Room, Civil Defence Headquarters' by William Roberts
Posted by John Proctor at 23:17, January 8 2014.

Many thanks to the William Roberts Society for allowing me to display 'The Control Room, Civil Defence Headquarters' by William Roberts, dated 1941.

According to the Tate Gallery catalogue (1965) - the oil painting on canvas was 'finished in or by April 1941' - so Jim and Allan would still have been at LCDRHQ when Roberts was working on it. The painting had been commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee.

Penguin Books used the painting on the cover of their 1960s 'Modern Classics' version of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-four'.

This magazine cutting was amongst Jim Ives' effects – it is worth noting the accuracy of detail of the maps and step-ladder – the 'action' does seem to have been concentrated when compared against the magazine photo, although during the aftermath of a raid in the blitz it must have been very busy around the maps. Whilst the figures are rendered in a 'rounded and friendly' style, the fellow second from the left in the rear rank has bony facial features somewhat reminiscent of Jim Ives.

Artist William Roberts was born in Hackney in 1895. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed at a firm of poster designers/advertisers and embarked on evening classes at St Martin's School of Art. In 1910 Roberts won a scholarship to Slade School of Fine Art. He joined Omega Workshops Ltd around 1913, a design enterprise where designers and artists could produce and sell their own products under the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Contemporaries at Omega were Roger Fry, Frederick Etchells, Edward Wadsworth and Percy Wyndham-Lewis among others.

In March 1916 Roberts enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery as a gunner and saw action on the Western Front. He returned to Blighty in 1918 to become an official war artist for the Ministry of Information his paintings included 'The First German Gas Attack at Ypres', 'Burying the Dead After a Battle', 'A Group of British Generals'.

Roberts went on to teach at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and in 1922 married Sarah Kramer, the couple producing a son, John. William Roberts developed a 'Tubist' style of depicting the human form, and specialised in groups of stylised 'tubular' human figures, doing activities, often placed in a London setting. 'The Control Room, Civil Defence Headquarters' is certainly an example of the format - where the figures take on the shapes of the backdrop of the maps.

'Higher circles' still. In memory of Arthur Graham Reynolds – 'Sir Barc'

'Higher circles' still. In memory of Arthur Graham Reynolds – 'Sir Barc'

- Another art world piece (after the Daily Telegraph were obviously influenced by yours truly to include a William Roberts painting on their letters page earlier this week) -

The rights for the only images I have found for Jim's LCDRHQ colleague 'Reynolds' are held by the National Portrait Gallery, so I'll direct you to :-

http://npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp59859/arthur-graham-reynolds

My father had referred to his cousin Jim as 'a bit smart' and some (quite a lot really) of Jim's comments about colleagues at LCDRHQ in his letters to Lilian are similarly 'smart', if not cruel in some instances. However lads in their late teens are apt to poke fun at people, especially when the figure of fun is somewhat older and more academic than they. One of those 'on the receiving end' recently passed away in his ninety-ninth year – a renowned Art Historian and V&A Curator.

'Somebody had better tell Reynolds

to join something, preferably the Italian

Army.

(Arthur) Graham Reynolds was born in 1914. An academic student, he gained a First in English Literature from Cambridge University, having entered as a scholar of mathematics (although he apparently would have preferred the History of Art, a course not then available).

Reynolds joined the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1937 and was soon appointed assistant keeper in the joint Department of Engravings, Illustration, Design and Paintings.

Carl Winter, an Australian colleague passed on to Reynolds his enthusiasm for and knowledge of the V& A's portrait miniatures and John Constable collection (nearly 400 works) bequeathed by Constable's descendant Miss Isobel Constable fiftyyears previously. Reynolds was encouraged to concentrate in these areas which awaited further scholarly scrutiny.

In the run-up to the Second World War Reynolds managed to gain considerable knowledge of the V&A's large watercolour collection and of Victorian paintings as he went about the usual business of rehanging galleries and arranging conservation. V&A staff were civil servants - employees of the Ministry of Education, and when war broke out in September 1939 Reynolds was allocated to the Department of Home Security at London Civil Defence Regional Headquarters in the Geological Museum, Exhibition Road, South Kensington. Here Graham Reynolds met, amongst others, fellow worker Daphne Dent, who had been studying at Huddersfield School of Art but had moved south and came to LCDRHQ in 1941. Reynolds and Dent married in 1943.

Head of Department James O'Gara meted out nicknames to his staff, 'Reynolds' became known as 'Sir Barclay' or 'Sir Barc'. Lilian recalled that his bearing was such that some people thought he really was a Knight of the Realm.

Having become experienced in Home Security's Civil Service ways Graham Reynolds chose to return to the V&A in 1945 and the following year was promoted Deputy Keeper of Paintings. Reynolds took over research into Elizabethan limner (portrait miniaturist) Nicholas Hilliard. Hilliard rendered miniature 'portraiture' for the Royal Courts of Elizabeth 1 and James 1, including two notable portraits of Queen Elizabeth – 'the Pelican' and 'the Phoenix'. The V&A's collection of portrait miniatures, which Reynolds redisplayed, had been stored in a quarry near Bath throughout the war for safe keeping.

Reynolds' research culminated in a 1947 exhibition showing works by both Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, a feat which helped greatly in furthering his reputation, attributing over 100 works to Hilliard and 80-odd to his pupil, Oliver. A book 'English Portrait Miniatures' was published in 1951.

Reynolds supervised moving the Raphael Cartoons into the V&A's 'large gallery' together with the cleaning of the renowned works. 'Painters of the Victorian Scene' (completed in 1953) and 'Victorian Painting' (1966) were Graham Reynolds' influential contributions to a revival in interest in Victorian paintings.

In 1953 Reynolds made a start on cataloguing the works of John Constable, and was to become an acknowledged expert, producing various authoritative publications on Constable and his paintings, the first of which, 'Constable, The Natural Painter' was published in 1965. Reynolds was responsible for first showing the Constables, also having a hand in designing the galleries in which they were hung. A 1967 visit by Reynolds to the USA to give an autumn lecture course at Yale University 'confirmed his lack of inclination for teaching' and he remained with the V&A until he retired at the end of 1974.

Thereafter the Reynoldses' weekend house in Suffolk became their base whence trips were made with travelling exhibitions and lectures on Constable's works and European miniatures. Destinations included New Zealand, Japan and the USA where his 'Constable's England' exhibition for the 'Britain Salutes New York' festival in 1984 brought Graham Reynolds the award of 'a gong', the OBE. The publication of his 'The Later Paintings of John Constable ' that year won him the coveted Mitchell Prize. Another honour was bestowed upon in 1993 when he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Reynolds was consistently in demand to catalogue miniatures and in 1994 he was appointed Honorary Keeper of Portrait Miniatures at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum. His long-standing involvement with the Royal Collection led to Reynolds being commissioned by the Royal Collection Trust to produce a book illustrating its sixteenth and seventeenth-century miniatures(1999). The award of the CVO (Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, one notch down from a knighthood) followed the successful completion of the tome.

Another instance of - 'move in high circles don't we'.

Daphne Reynolds (nee Dent), January 12th 1918 - December 12^th 2002.

(Arthur) Graham Reynolds, died in October 2013.

Post script -

I'm certain that had he been aware of it, Graham Reynolds would have made short work of Jim's jibe as he was attributed with a particularly dry sense of humour, and the ability to deliver 'penetrating' criticism.

Air to air rockets P/O Cyril Kroemer

P/O Cyril Kroemer - Air to air rockets

In 1943 the Luftwaffe adapted the Nebelwerfer 42 rocket for use against Allied bombers, initially it seems, to disrupt USAAF bomber box formations. The Werfer-granate 21 was hoped to become an even more potent weapon than the Luftwaffe fighters' existing 20mm cannons, with a longer range and a 21cm diameter HE warhead. The earliest known use against bombers was at the end of July 1943 on the USAAF daylight raids on Kiel and Warnamunde. The rockets displayed considerable pyrotechnic effect in addition to their hitting power, but accuracy proved a problem.

Single launch tubes were fitted beneath the wings of Bf109 and Fw190 single-engine fighters and it is thought that some Me210 Ca-1s had three tubes under each wing, but these appear to have been used as day-fighters only. The rocket was modified for use in the air, having a 90lb war-head and being fitted with a time-fuse. However the launch tubes had to be set with an upward firing angle of about 15° from the horizontal to allow for the rocket trajectory, which increased the already considerable drag from the rockets and tubes, with significantly adverse effects on aircraft performance and manoeuvrability.

In all likelihood on 1^st/2^nd January 1944, P/O Cyril Kroemer had been fired upon by a single-engine 'wild-boar' fighter armed with under-wing Werfer-granate 21 rockets.

Derek Fenton, youngest brother of F/Sgt Bob Fenton

Derek Fenton, youngest brother of F/Sgt Bob Fenton ('Kiwi') RNZAF, the sole survivor from A/W/O J K Ives' 100 Squadron Lancaster ND360 HW-N, shot down on its bombing run over 'the Big City' on 30^th January 1944, recalled an occurrence when brother Gordon had woken in a terrible state having had a terrifying dream about an awful explosion and horrific fire in the sky. The awful dream came to Gordon on the night of 30^th January 1944 – the brothers saw the significance when the family received the Air Ministry telegram soon afterwards.
www.jcproctor.co.uk