RAF Local Residents
From Lacey Green History
Exhibition research by Joan West
The Royal Air Force was formed from the Royal Flying Corps in 1918. Several men who trained in those early days had homes here during WW2, by then high ranking officers.
A full history of each was given at an exhibition by The Local History Group in 2018 giving photographs, details of their lifetime careers, their honours and awards, families and their association here with other details such as the planes they flew.
Clive Adams RAF. Owned 'Summer Hayes', Main Road, Lacey Green in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Background.
Imperial Airlines was formed in 1924 at the request and support of the government by merging 3 airlines. The brief was to establish flying routes worldwide to transport mail, facilitate settlement, contact and trade around the Empire, being faster than the slow shipping routes then used. Based at Croydon Airport, south of London, local services were discontinued. Alan Cobham researched routes to South Africa, Australia and India, for which he was knighted. It merged with BOAC in 1939.
All airlines were nationalized during WW2, run by RAF.
1939 August, Clive Adams was asked to survey Poole Harbour as a possible wartime base for Imperial Airways.
1942 RAF took over Poole Harbour Airport, renaming it RAF Hamworth
Researcher’s Note By 1941 the established route to India and the Far East had become unusable because of the war, but bases in India were in urgent need of supplies in the fight against Japan.
1941 Clive Adams was flown out to Salala, Southern Saudi Arabia, in charge of a party to develop a new route. The terrain was difficult, but in October a tented camp was set up in a coconut grove on the beach. A kitchen and bathroom was built out of palm leaves and the first radio station was installed in a tent. The completed route was opened up in 1942. It was one of the most difficult routes in the world to organize on the ground.
Researcher’s Note. Throughout WW2, the RAF, TATA,(Indian Airlines) and CNAC, (Chinese Airlines) worked this route. They were involved in its development, carried the vital supplies and rescued refugees from Burma. TATA serviced RAF planes and equipment. After the fall of Burma CNAC based its headquarters in India for the remainder of the war. NOTE. This Information is taken from “Merchant Airmen”, by the Air Ministry. Account of British Civil Aviation, 1939-44.
Clive Adams also worked in America for 2 years, letting ‘Summer Hayes’ to a Russian woman and her daughter Natasha, while he was away.
Post WW2
After the war he returned to BOAC, with which Imperial Airways had been merged. (The government did not want competition between airlines on these worldwide routes).
Graham Baker National Service In 1950
Pre Call Up
Graham Baker was the son of Fred and Connie Baker of The Foundry, Loosley Row.
Graham aged 15, was apprenticed at Wycombe Foundry for 5 years with the theory part done at Wycombe Technical College, London Road. He cycled there daily
National Service
In 1956, Graham was called up for 2 years National Service in the RAF. Research Note Apprentices were deferred until their training was complete.
Graham, now aged 21-23, found younger men were giving him orders. This he did not appreciate and disliked his years in National Service. He was stationed at Lyneham.
RAF Sergeant Reginald "Reg" Charles Bolt. Retired to Foundry Lane, Loosley Row.
Service Career
In 1939 Reg enlisted in the RAF at Cardinton, Lincolnshire, aged 18. Research Note His widow revealed that he had been about to go to university, but enlisted so that he could choose which service to join. She also said that he did not want to become an officer, preferring to be “Hands-on”.
1939 Basic Training then Special Training in Radar.
WW2 Electrical Airborne Radar (in aircraft) with postings around the Mediterranean.
Post war University, graduating in Engineering.
In 1953 Reg married Joan Day. They lived in Bromley, Kent,
2003 Reg retired and they moved to Loosley Row.
Research Note. Finding out about Reg Bolt's RAF career was virtually Impossible. Both his widow and his RAF friends could only say that everything he did was utmost secret and he never talked about it.
Wilfred Brown. Lived at The Crown, Church Lane, Lacey Green.
Wilf Brown was called up during WW2 into the RAF. He spent most of the war in India. He was taken ill when his body stopped sweating in the heat. In order to save his life he was sent to high altitude Kashmir to recover. Research Note. Barry Macey told me that Wilf always told what a beautiful place it was and that his recovery time was the best days of his life.
Air Vice Marshall Leslie William Cannon . Retired to 'Cairndale, Main Road, Lacey Green.
Service Career
1920 Joined RAF, boy mechanic, no 2 Technical Training Cranwell
1932 Engineering Officer, RAF Cranwell
1932 Engineering Officer, HQ RAF India.
1935 Flight Commander, no 60 Squadron
1937 Officer Commanding, no 5 Squadron, Northwest Frontier, India.
1938 Admin/ Personnel Staff. HQ Training Command.
1939 Staff Directorate of Operations (Home).
1940 Wing Commander, Eng. Staff Officer, HQ Bomber Command
1941 Chief Technical Officer, HQ no 21 Group.
1942 Officer Commanding RAF Watton.
1943(Mar) Deputy S.A.S.O. HQ no 83 Composite Group
1943(Nov) Officer Commanding no 138 Wing
1943(Dec) SOA, HQ, no 2 Group
1944 AOA, HQ no 2 Group.
1946 Group Captain, AOC, no 2 Group
1948 Assistant Commandant, RAF Staff College, Andover
1949 Air Commodore, Director of Organisation (Establishment)
1951-55 Acting Air Vice Marshall, Commander-in-chief, Royal Pakistan Air Force (1953 made Air Vice Marshall)
1955 Director-General of Organisation.
He continued to fly on operations as Officer Commanding, Watton and AOA, no 2 Group with both the RAF and USAAF for which he was awarded the US Silver Star.
He represented the RAF in athletics, boxing and pistol shooting.
Retirement
Retiring from the RAF, he returned to the Indian sub-continent as Senior Representative of Rolls Royce Ltd.
Honours and Awards
He was the first apprentice to attain the rank of Air Vice Marshall
1952 made Companion of the Order of the Bath.
1945 made CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire)
Mentioned in despatches, Feb 1938, Sept. 1941, Jan. 1945, Jan 1946
Squadron Leader John Granville "Dixie" Dean 'Dixie' and Edith Dean moved to to 'Griston', Goodacres Lane, Lacey Green in 1976.
Service Career
1936 Joined RAF Trained as Electronics Engineer at RAF Halton
WW2. Postings around the Mediterranean
1949 Married Edith at Mansfield. (Edith was a nurse in London)
1953-55 RAF Base near Newark.
1956-59 RAF Binbrook, (bomber squadrons)
1959-61 RAF Signals Officer, Jever, Germany. Researcher’s Note. It was at RAF Jever that 'Dixie' met Bob Barcelon, who also retired to Lacey Green.
1961-63 Signals Development Squadron, RAF Watton, Norfolk.
1963-65 RAF Wyton, Cambs. 51 Squadron. Researcher Note. It was only following the end of the Cold War that the signals intelligence role of the squadron was publicly recognized.
1965-68 RAF Watton, 360 Squadron, Joint Electronic Warfare Trials and Training Force.
1969-73 Strike Command, Walters Ash. Electronic Warfare. Research Note. During the years 1963- 73, Dixie’s work was top secret and he and Edith were restricted where they could travel for their own security. He was awarded the MBE for the work he did at this time.
Post Retirement from the RAF
John 'Dixie' Dean then worked for Trend Communications, High Wycombe
He died in 1984 aged 61.
William Bernard Frederick. Circa 1938/9, he and his wife, Laura Matilda Frederick moved to the newly built house on Main Road in Lacey Green, which they named “Mandara”, a Hindu word meaning “Lantern of Peace”
1939 William Bernard Frederick who had retired from the RAF was granted a Commission in the RAF, Class CC as Flight Lieutenant
He died in 1941 aged 54. His name is on the WW2 War Memorial in St. John's Church, Lacey Green.
Group Captain Donald Osborne Finlay retired in 1959 to 'Chippins' Main Road, Lacey Green.
Research Note. "Don" Finlay was best known to the public as an athlete. An all round athlete competing in long jump, shot put, and javelin, but best remembered as a hurdler. He competed in the Olympic Games in 1932, 1936 and 1948, when he was Captain of the British Team and chosen to take the "Olympic Oath". In 1934 he won gold at the Empire Games and competing in 1950 (aged 41) he still finished 5th.
Service Career
1935 Joined the RAF
1936 School of Aeronautical Engineering
1939 Commanding Officer RAF Hornchurch, (Battle o Britain Spitfires)
Aug 1940 Shot down and wounded. Sept 1940 Officer Commanding 41 Squadron
1941 Promoted Wing Commander, Engineering Officer 11 Group.
1942 Commander no 608 Squadron (Lockheed Hudsons in Middle-East).
Dec 1943 to July 1944 Group Captain, Senior Air Staff Office, 210 Group.
1945 Office Commanding 906 Wing in Burma.
Post War
Senior Technical Training Officer, Halton.
1959 Retired
Honours and Awards
June 1942 Distinguished Flying Cross. His victory tally flying fighters was 4, with 2 shared, destroyed, 3, with 1 shared, damaged.
Sept 1944 Air Force Cross
Research Note
A Motor Accident in 1966 left Don confined to a wheelchair. He could not accept this new situation. He died in 1970.
Memorials
A stained glass window in RAF Acklington Chapel
A replica Tornado at RAF Coningsby.
A replica Spitfire at Entrance to RAF High Wycombe at Walters Ash (Bomber Command)
The Gymnasium, RAF Halton.
Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet. Air Chief Marshal. Stationed at Bomber Command, Walters Ash, WW2.
Researcher’s note. Born 1892, being inspired by stories of Southern Rhodesia, he ducked out of boarding school aged 17 and in 1910 emigrated to Umtali, South Rhodesia, eventually establishing his own farm. Being in the bush at the time, he only learned about WW1 a month after it was declared.
Service Career
1914 Harris joined the 1st Rhodesian Army Regiment serving with South African forces in South West Africa, where Germany was inflecting heavy bombing.
1915 sailed for England with 300 South African volunteers.
He applied for the Cavalry and Royal Artillery with no luck but was accepted for the Royal Flying Corps in November 1915. After learning to fly he was a second lieutenant.
1917 Flight Commander on the home front and in France. Nov. 1918. Awarded the Air Force Cross for Distinguished service.
Post WW1
Having married in 1916 to Barbara Money and now with a child, Harris, although he now thought of himself as a Rhodesian, decided to stay in England and remained in the newly formed RAF.
1920 Commander RAF Digby No.3 Flying Training School, followed by North West Frontier troubles in India and bombings and uprisings in Mesopotamia, (under British occupation) and Persia.
May 1922 He offered his resignation, wanting to go back to Rhodesia, but was persuaded to stay. 1923. He helped devise Area Bombing in Iraq
1924. Air Commanding, first post-war Heavy Bombing Squadron, No 58, developing Night Training.
June 1927 Awarded OBE (order of the British Empire)
July 1927 promoted Wing Commander of a Flying-Boat Squadron, also developing Night Flying Operation Techniques.
June 1933 promoted to Group Captain
1934-1937 Deputy Director of Plans in the Air Ministry, with postings to Middle-East Command, Egypt as Senior Staff Officer.
Also in 1936, he helped Southern Rhodesia set up its own Air Force.
July 1937 Promoted to Air Commodore.
1938 Air Commanding no.4 Bomber Group. He went on a purchasing mission in the USA. Then Officer Commanding the RAF in Palestine and Trans-Jourdan
July 1939 Promoted to Air Vice Marshall and with others pressured for Large Strategic Bombers
WW2 Sept 1939 Command No 5 Group
Nov 1940 Deputy Chief Air of Staff Feb 1942 Appointed Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command
JUNE 1942 Appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath
1942 The War Cabinet passed "The Area Bombing Directive" which advocated the area bombing of German cities.
Harris was directed to carry out this task. It became an important part of the total war waged against Germany
Maybe because it was not wholly endorsed by all in Government, including Churchill, who considered the policy distasteful, it appears that the general public were not told the full extent of the targets and official statements maintained they were only industrial and economic with civilian casualties being unintentional but unavoidable. Harris urged the Government to be more honest with the public, although he himself did believe in the area bombing policy.
Aug 1944 Promoted to Air Chief Marshall
Awards
Feb 1944 Awarded the Russian Order of Surorov, First Class
Jan 1945 Awarded the American Legion of Merit
Jun 1945 Awarded the Polish Order of Polonia Restituta, First Class
Jun 1945 Advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Nov 1945 Appointed Knight Grand Cross, Southern Cross of Brazil
Jun 1946 Awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the USA
Retired September 1946
Bomber Command's crews were eligible for the Air Crew Europe Star, France Star and German Star, but because the late bombing of Dresden was considered by many to have been unnecessary, they were denied a separate Campaign Medal.
Harris refused a peerage in 1946 in protest to this snub to his men.
He was the sole Commander-in-Chief not to become a peer.
Post WW2
1948 Harris moved to South Africa to manage the South African Marine Corporation from 1946 to 1953. In 1953 He returned to live in England.
Feb 1953 Winston Churchill, once again Prime Minister, insisted that Arthur Harris accept a Baronetcy.
Ivor William Kelloway, RAF. by Ian Kelloway, his son. Ivor and Joan Kelloway lived at “The Haven”, Main Road, Lacey Green, post WW2
Ivor Kelloway decided the RAF was the career for him, when aged 4, on holiday near the prime naval port of Portland, he witnessed an air battle when some Swordfish took on some German bombers.
1941, aged 16, he joined the Air Training Corps. A keen sportsman, he played cricket for Somerset and football for Yeovil, albeit because many of the first teams had been called up.
Military Career
Sept1943 Called up, (being a member of ATC). Ironically to report to Lords (the home of cricket in London. Training followed in a number of venues. One in East Anglia using F.I.D.O. in which fuel was set alight alongside the runways to disperse the fog. More training at 617 Squadron, (of dam busters fame), at that time hunting the German battleship “Tirpitz”.
Cranwell followed where he trained to be a navigator in Mosquitoes. One training flight ended up overshooting the runway and his back was hurt. It was the day of the RAF football cup, he was patched up and declared fit, but while heading in the winning goal the goalie knocked him flying. He came round in hospital, where he was kept for six weeks.
Back to Cranwell, where he was obliged to start again from scratch on a different course, this time for signalling. Next, Blackpool for a course on movement control.
Late 1944. Posted to Bomber Command, Walters Ash, Ivor Kelloway was responsible for physical education and organizing fixtures for all types of sports and looking after the personal fixtures of all Bomber command aircrews.
Summer 1946. Spent flying to airfields that were closing down, removing any equipment worth keeping and playing cricket for the RAF at King George V docks, Glasgow, to keep control of RAF equipment and also the kit of deceased airmen. After V.E. Day. The RAF allowed the youths like Ivor to go one day a week to try out a civilian workplace. Having a friend at Mill End School, High Wycombe, Ivor went there.
March 1947. Posted to Swindon as R.T.O. (rail transport officer) to assist service personnel travelling by rail.
Ivor had applied for a place at St. Lukes College, Exeter for a two year course for teachers. The RAF agreed to his discharge and also agreed sponsorship for him.
Personal History
Spring 1945. Frank Chilton, stalwart of Lacey Green Sports Club, hearing there was a good cricketer at Bomber Command, cycled over to the base to invite him to come and play.
February 1947 (a winter of record snow) Ivor Kelloway, from Somerset, married Joan, the daughter of Frank and Elsie Chilton, of Lacey Green. Ivor never lost his enthusiasm for sport and was for many years a school headmaster in High Wycombe.
For more links in Ivor's history above --for Ian Kelloway click Ian & Sue Kelloway , for Lacey Green Sports Club click The Sports Club, for Frank and Elsie Chilton click Frank & Elsie Chilton
Sir Hugh Pughe LLoyd, Air Chief Marshall. Family home in WW2 'The Thatched House' Church Lane, Lacey Green
1915 Royal Engineer Sapper
1917 Royal Flying Corps (became Royal Air Force in 1918)
Jan 1918 Pilot no.52 Squadron. Reconnaissance / attack over France.
Sept 1918 Flight Commander no 52 Squadron
1924 Flight Commander no 16 Squadron
1939 Group Captain, Officer Commanding RAF Marham
WW2
1940 Senior Air Staff Officer, HQ no 2 Group 1941 Air Officer Commanding RAF Mediterranean/ Air HQ Malta
Jul 1942 Air Officer Commanding (Naval Co-Operation Group and Senior Air Staff Officer HQ Middle-East Command
Mar 1943 Air Officer Commanding North-west African Coastal Air.
Dec 1943 Air Officer Commanding, Mediterranean Allied Coastal Nov 1945 Commander Designate, Tiger Force (Heavy bombers against Japan). Force never implemented after atomic bomb on Hiroshima ended war.
Post WW2
Dec 1945 Senior instructor, Imperial Defence College.
1949 Commander in Chief, Air Command Far East Air Force.
1950 Air Officer Commander in chief, Bomber Command, Walters Ash.
Retired 1953 .
Honours and Award
June 1918 Military Cross
Sept 1918 Croix De Guerre
Feb 1919 Distinguished Flying Cross
May 1936 Mentioned in Despatches
Sept 1941 made Commander of the British Empire (CBE)
Jan 1942 made Companion of the order of the Bath.
July 1942 made Knight of the British Empire (KBE)
1944 French Legion d'Honeur
1944 Legion of Merit, USA
June 1951 Upgraded to Knight Commander of the Bath
June 1953 Upgraded to Grand Knight Cross Order of the British Empire
Researcher’s notes. It was reported that “Hugh Pughe did not “abide by the book, and proved extremely successful during his tenure as AOC, Malta. He seemed to have an eye for selecting the right people. At one point he commissioned a Sergeant Pilot, who rose to become Air Marshall. He believed in improvisation and would support his subordinates to the hilt”.
Group Captain Reginald Charles Jordan. Lived at 'Chippins', Main Road, Lacey Green
Service Career
Joined the Royal Australian Air Force.
1941-1942 served in RAF Squadron 126 defending Malta
1943 Malta based, supporting Campaign in Italy.
Killed 1943. Commemorated on the Malta Memorial, panel S.
First Office Freydis Sharland, Nee Leaf. ATA, RAF. Post war lived at 'Tylers Field', Little Wardrobes Lane, Loosley Row
Pre WW2
Freydis was born in Cambridge in 1920, the daughter of Catherine and Charles Leaf, a noted meteorologist and archaeologist, also Olympic yachting gold medalist, 1936. Both father and Freydis were fascinated with flying and so in 1937 both joined her brother learning to fly. All civilian flying ceased with the outbreak of WW2, 1939.
Service Career
1939 Volunteer in Military Hospital, Colchester. Applied for the Air Transport Auxiliary but her 4 hours, 40 minutes solo flying was not enough to qualify.
1942 Running out of people with more experience than her, she was at last given a flight test for the ATA, (established to deliver new planes to RAF bases across Britain and later also to mainland Europe and the Mediterranean, the pilots flying solo).
Feb 1943. Accepted into the Air Transport Auxiliary. . Training started on simple single engine planes, then single engine and twin engine fighters followed by heavier single and twin engine bombers eventually also 4 engine bombers.
No navigational aids were supplied, only maps, so clear weather and flying low was necessary in order to see the ground, looking for railway lines, lakes and other landmarks.
The planes were unarmed. They had no radio communication. The death rate was 1 in 10. Freydis Leaf had started in the ATA having had a total of 26 hours, 10 minutes flying experience. When she left at the end of October 1945 she had flown 607 hours, 25 minutes. She had flown 38 different types of aircraft.
Freydis won her full RAF Wings but never took up her uniform. She continued her flying career as a freelance commercial pilot.
Post WW2RAF Fighters) The 4,000 mile solo journey involved 3 stops at Nicosia, Baghdad and Bahrain before reaching Karachi (On arrival, being a woman, she was denied access to the Officers Mess.)
1953 she delivered to the Pakistan Air Force, a Hawker Tempest V (one of the biggest and fastest of the last generation of piston-engine
Research Note. Although unlikely that they met in 1953, Air Vice Marshall William “Bill” Cannon, then Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Pakistan Air Force, may well have ordered the purchase of this plane. In the 1960’s both the Sharlands and the Cannons were living here in Loosley Row and Lacey Green.
1954 1st Female British Air Racing Champion, flying a 'Hawk Major'. Research Note. The annual Air Racing Championship consisted of 8 venues and 16 races, the planes being handicapped. It is cumulative, the maximum points for each race being 100 on a sliding scale.
1955 Freydis met and married Tim Sharland. They met on a liner when she was going to visit her brother in South Africa. They farmed for a few years in Northern Rhodesia before coming to Loosley Row to farm. She had a break from flying while they reared their family.
1955 Founder and first Chairman of the newly established British Women Pilots Association
Officer of Women's Junior Air Corps, Girls Venture Corps and on GVC Panel
1980 Retired. She then bought a microlight and carried on flying into her seventies.
Awarded
2008 Awarded, with other veterans the ATA Service Medal.
Vic Southon. Lived at Beggar's Roost, Foundry Lane, Loosley Row.
Vic joined the RAF in 1949. After basic training he trained as a radio technician.
1851 Officer training as a pilot at Cranwell, then posted to Egypt, flying fighter Gloster Meteors.
Several postings followed in the Cold War. UK postings flying Javelins, which had replaced the Meteor in 1956. He was posted to Bomber Squadron flying Vulcans, but his heart remained in Fighter Command.
Training on Bloodhound Missiles at RAF Scampton, may have decided Vic to leave the RAF in order to be able to continue "hands-on" flying - his great love.
POST RAF. In 1967 having obtained his Airline Transport Pilots' License he joined British Airways, flying Boeing 707s, VC10s and 747s worldwide. Having to retire at 55 he then became one of Richard Branson's original pilots for Virgin Atlantic, until his retirement.
Vic died in December 2017 aged 88
John Timothy "Timmy" Tempest. Lived at Virginia Cottage, Main Road, Lacey Green.
Timmy joined the RAF Volentry Reserve. After basic training he became a flying officer. In WW2 he was a navigator in bombers over France.
In 1943 WW2. Based Nr. Misrata, North-West Libya (recently taken from the Italians). Timmy was Navigator in a crew of seven, under Pilot Micky Vertigan when an accident occurred - - -
Rearcher’s Notes from the book ‘Down in the Drink’. On a night bombing mission to cut off roads converging on Tunis in, order to finally push the German Afrika Korps out of Africa, they took off from Misrata, in a Halifax. A “freakishly” hot air temperature, caused the 4 engines to fail, one by one. They put down in the Mediterranean, where they escaped into their dinghy, Timmy Tempest only able to estimate their position. They drifted ashore on the eleventh morning onto a desolate coast, weak from lack of water and food and very sunburnt. They were rescued by local, (friendly) Arabs.
Timmy awarded the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross)
Douglas Tilbury. Lived at Parslows Hillock Cottages no 2
1952 - 1954 National Servce in the RAF.
Served on 56 Squadron Fighter Command, fitting. refuelling and servicing the engines on the Meteor Mk 8. The Gloster Meteor was the first operational jet fighter. It went on to become a Fighter Bomber and Reconnaissance Fighter.
click Doug Tilbury for Doug's life story