The following is the story of the journey taken by Di Ablewhite, one of the IBCC researchers when she first heard of the poem mum wrote and my plea for help.
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Things have progressed since then but this sums up the passion and commitment of all those who have helped to complete the picture.
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Finally sharing a wonderful gift
Have you ever read a post on social media that touched you so much it moved you to take action? Last month I came across a poem that did just that!
On the 16th of July 2020, a gentleman shared the most beautiful poem that was written by his Mother in 1943. As a keen researcher, particularly when it comes to Bomber Command History, this request was one I simply could not ignore to try to solve.
The post read as follows:
“I have a huge ask.
I posted about my uncle the other day. He was RAF during the war. Well at the same time my mum was a teenager in Birmingham.
A work colleague was having her 18th birthday and mum was quite excited to hear that her friends’ brother would be there with his Lancaster crew!
Inspired, mum wrote the following ditty to present to them at the party.
Unfortunately, by the time of the party, the crew had been lost. The poem sat in her book of poems for years until we found it, not long before her death a couple of years ago.
Can anyone help identify the Lancaster and the crew from the detail in the poem? A long shot I know. But any help would be gratefully received.”
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Reg Gibson
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"In tribute to a Gallant crew from a grateful British subject"
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<snip> The Poem - see above. Di Continues:
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All day I kept thinking about it, how lovely it would be to know who she had meant those words for….I only had my phone so knew I couldn’t even try and find an answer till I got back so I took a screenshot, to look in detail when I got home.
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In theory it seemed pretty straight forward, she’d named all the crew…what soon became apparent was some were obviously nicknames not actual names and no surname for Dinger or Corney could be found. This would take a little more investigating than I imagined.
The crew were lost somewhere between 1943 and 1944, and within this crew the only names I could be 100% sure of were a Pilot named Norman, a Bomb Aimer called John and that there would be a George and a Joe somewhere in the team. Then I had the extra challenge of finding names where Dinger, Corney and Baron could fit as a possible nickname.
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My first stop was the International Bomber Command Centre losses database. First I searched for the Christian name Norman…686 of them…. then narrowed it down with Aircraft Type, the poem said it was a Lancaster - down to 264. Then I reduced it down to a timeframe, between 1943 and 1944 – I was down to 217 of them Sadly it's not possible to narrow down trade to Pilot, so I took a look at all 217 entries. If a Norman was not a Pilot, I simply moved on. Two days later several Pilot Norman’s turned up, but none with the other crew names in the right position, searching all of 1943 resulted in nothing close…. but then in January 1944, a Pilot named Norman with a Bomb Aimer called John!!!
My hours of research had started to pay off. I was hopeful! I saw that another crew member was named Bell...could that be Dinger? And another called Wheatstone...could that be Corney? They all seemed to fit apart from baron. I wasn’t 100% sure, but another ray of hope was that one of this crew was from Birmingham near to where the author of the poem lived. So I replied to the original message saying there was a chance this was the crew, but we needed firm proof to be sure.
Finding the relatives
As one of the volunteer researchers at the IBCC (International Bomber Command Centre), myself and Reg (the writer of the original post) then set about trying to find relatives of this crew, in the hope that one of them had a letter or some recollection of any use of these nicknames. Together we constructed the airmen's family trees and found hopeful contacts for 6 out of the 7 families. Reg made contact and we have been provided with some wonderful photos from that time including the two crew photos below. Then came a huge breakthrough, Reg had a reply from John Stanley’s niece, the airman that lived in Birmingham. John Stanley’s sister should have had her 18th Birthday party in April 1944, and John should have been there with his crew, and so would have heard the poem, she also confirmed that her Aunt knew Jean through work.
To our relief the final piece fell into place and we were finally able to share this gift with them. The families of the crew now have heard the poem that was meant to be a surprise as a party that sadly never happened, tragic events overtook.
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…. Lest We Forget…. Remembering the Crew of Lancaster JB141 626 Sqn Lost 15.1.1944
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