From this…
To this…
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A whole wealth of information!
Bonjour Pierre, hello John,
Back home now. Checked logbook. Dad has no entry for 9 May 1942. He flew a Spit he marked as ” 177″ from HMS Eagle to Malta on 18 May. I attach (in my techo-challenged way) a copy of my working copy of the relevant page for your records. If you would like a scanned shot of the original page let me know; I just need to warm up my antique Canon scanner.
Cheers
Bruce
Click on the image to zoom in.
I did not know Buck McNair flew off an aircraft carrier. I have to know more. And yes Bruce I would like a scanned image from your antique Canon if possible.
Meantime I will be reading Pat Murphy’s account of Spitfires taking off HMS Eagle.
Spitfires on USS Wasp
Pat Murphy has been contributing to this blog about 403 Squadron.
Last night he sent me this picture of Charles Charlesworth who flew with 443 Squadron.
In a sense this post belongs here and I will reblog it later on my other blog about the 443.
Pat is a subscriber to this blog and he saw the post about Chuck Charlesworth.
He wrote this message…
Pierre really enjoying your recent postings and it’s always nice to see the Smith Brothers story again. Here is a picture that Art Sager gave me in 2004 of Charles Charlesworth at the far left, Art in the middle and Lloyd Hunt sitting on a jeep. It was taken in March 1945. Those are the only details I have.
Pat is the contributor who wrote the story about the Smith brothers.
He had more to say.
Art also gave me a 443 Squadron group photo probably taken around the same time. We never got around to identifying all those Spitfire pilots but you can see Art second from left, Charlesworth far right and Jim O’Toole is in the bottom row second from right without the hat.
Pat had even more in store…
Jim lives in Nanaimo and recently celebrated his 90 birthday at the Vancouver Island Military Museum with his family in attendance, Stocky Edwards came down from Comox to say a few words and it was a fun time to see these two Spitfire pilots together. Stocky was the Wing Commander for the last few months of the War.
Jim on the left
Much more…
I’ve also included a picture of Jim O’Toole in his Spitfire.
All 3.9 megs of it!
Jim O’Toole
I was so beautiful that I could not resist sprucing it up a little.
We have a copy of Jim’s log book in the museum and it makes for interesting reading.
Keep up the good work
Work?
This is not work.
This is a passion!