Fred Woolerton, one of the ground crew that was responsible for maintaining NE181, JN-M – ‘The Captains Fancy’ – the only Lancaster in 75(NZ) Squadron to exceed 100 Ops.
In January, as part of the remarkable collection of information that Tony had sent me regarding his Father, Dick Pickup, Wireless Operator with the Bailey crew and JN-M, ‘The Captains Fancy’ there was an Air Ministry Bulletin, congratulating JN-M on her 100th sortie.
The bulletin had been passed on by a member of ‘Mikes’ ground crew, Fred Woolerton, to the crew’s A/B Jack Wall, who in turn passed a copy to Dick……….
It gives me great pleasure and I am sure also, to Zoe, Fred’s grand daughter, to present a picture of Fred. According to Zoe, the RAF was Fred’s life and he spent many hours writing down his memories – sadly the location of these notes is unknown………
As way of an update, looking back on a post from January regarding the Bailey crew and ‘The Captains Fancy’ – I wonder if the chap, crouching on the right of the front row, might be Fred ??
75(nz)squadron 
Fred’s wife, Vi, donated all of Fred’s research to the museum at Witchford.
Fred and Vi were great supporters of the association.
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Hi Kevin
do you have a contact for Witchford – I don’t think Zoe knows this happened………
cheers
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Hi,
I note that NE181 returned twice on only 3 engines 7 and 11 January – about the time fred was looking after her. It would be great to find those notes and see what the ground crew’s thoughts were about that at the time!
Cheers,
Ian
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Kevin says that Bill’s memoirs were left to the Witchford Museum, just up the road from Mepal – I’ve let Zoe, Fred’s grand daughter, know this and hopefully we might hear back with something more……
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