120,000+ visits

As always, a massive thanks to everybody who is continuing to support the blog and provide new material for it.

My ‘return’ to the blog a few weeks ago, to be honest feels like a bit of a false start – my anticipation that things were going to quieten down wasn’t really proved correct and a trip down to London for a week and then last week in Greece on business for the University provided another series of interruptions. I hope this week to build a reservoir of posts – perhaps enough to time release one a day at a set time. How long this will last, or indeed, how long it will take to do, I am not sure to be honest – but I’ll give it ago…….

There are some logbooks, some uniform information and as always information and requests for information on crews that flew with the Squadron – I am STILL working through the backlog of emails that have built up, so as I said 10,000 visits ago, please bare with me – I’ll get back in contact as soon as I can.

I also hope to begin to post the gravestone images people have sent me – when Adrian sent me the first sets from the UK, I felt it was only appropriate to say a bit about each set and what the fates of the boys were – as these images have kept coming in, this in itself represents a bit of a job!

I am still catching a bit of time also on the Form 541 database – I have almost now completed 1944 – (1 month and 2 weeks to go) the database, having randomly been started at the beginning of 1943, stands at almost 4,000 rows of information, each row at the moment contains basic aircraft and crew information, but this means there is already some 20 cells per row that contains this information. I have absolutely no idea when this will be completed – already I can see umpteen other cells that can be added – but I hope that ultimately, this will provide a searchable database and enable me to put up an Op history for every single crew that flew with the Squadron during the War – just don’t hold your breath!

So perhaps I’ll end it here – probably better to get on with some posts, rather than spend time telling you I will be doing some posts!

Many thanks as always to all of you

Simon

THE LANCASTER: Britains Flying Past – Sunday, 9.30pm, BBC2.

Just a quick heads up to everybody that the third of John Sergeant’s ‘Britain’s Flying Past’ series tonight features the Lancaster Bomber.

If this wasn’t enough reason to watch it, the photograph above shows John stood in front of a crew of 7 veterans, each representing a position in a crew – and I am VERY pleased to say that the 2nd in from the left looks like our very own John de Hoop, Wireless Operator with Wylie Wakelin’s crew, who flew with 75(NZ) Squadron RAF between October 1944 and March 1945.

THE LANCASTER: Britains Flying Past – Sunday, 9.30pm, BBC2.

For those of you outside of the UK, who might not be able to view BBC iPlayer, its worth trying a VPN (virtual private network) application like Astrill (no vested interest in this app particularly, but I have used it) – basically it hides your location and thus you are able to access geographically dependent websites – don’t worry readers – nothing dodgey, you can even get them on Apples App Store – but it might just let you watch this and similar programmes

Peter Walker

It is with great sadness that I must report the recent passing of Peter Walker, Treasurer of the Friends of 75 (NZ) Squadron Association, UK.

Peter and his wife Rita have been coming to the Association reunions for the past 30 years, being introduced by the late Mick Strickland. Both couples lived in Brandon and attended all Association functions. Sadly Ted died a couple of years ago, but his wife Pam still attends the reunions.

Peter took on the roll of treasurer at a very difficult time. The Association had to raise money for the Memorial Garden and Peter was at the forefront in the effort to do so. Although he had no direct connection with the Squadron he and his wife immersed themselves wholeheartedly into the association.

Although in ill health, he and his wife accompanied Margaret and Roly Still to Belgium earlier this year to lay a wreath, and unveil a plaque for the association.

Peter will be greatly missed for his unstinting service and selfless dedication to the association.

Ake Ake Kia Kaha

(many thanks to Kevin for the information in this post)