bisonrav

Apart from my own flying history, I've been looking at my grandfather's career during the war. He initially trained as an RAF navigator in Pensacola in 1941, and did gunnery courses at RAF at Wigtownin 1942, and from 1944 was a navigator in Transport Command flying Avro Yorks to the Middle East mostly, including trips with Mountbatten on board. That latter period is sampled in some wonderful accounts he wrote to my grandmother in a few letters, and I very much felt common cause with him when he explained how the life of flitting around from place to place, not staying long, suited him. Because that's very much how I feel about travel.

But apart from the RAF flying, he spent a spell in 1942/3 as a BOAC navigator on flying boats, S26, S30, Sunderland etc. I've just scanned his logbook and thought the BOAC portion might interest the odd avgeek here. It can be found via dropbox here.

Some fascinating bits and pieces, the first S30 in the log, "Clare" (G-AFCZ) crashed in flames off Bathurst, Gambia, a couple of weeks after he flew in it. I was also interested to discover there is a seaplane museum at Shannon, Foynes, which was one of the stops on the very long trip via Lisbon and Bathurst to Lagos.I'll certainly be going there once lockdown is over.

Horace Smith. I remember being a little disappointed he wasn't a Spitfire pilot when I was a small child, but I'm very proud of him now.

Richmond_Surrey

I looked up "Clare" (G-AFCZ) and there's quite a lot of info about it and pictures.

bisonrav

Most of the aircraft he flew in during that phase of his career are well documented online, it was a fairly small and select fleet. The flight times are astonishing, 12 hours after early starts in a not particularly comfortable aircraft, and I doubt there was much relief.

FlightDetective

The Foynes Flying Boat Museum is a great place to spend half a day. It's an hour and 10 minutes on a bus from Limerick city (which is the city Shannon Airport serves) or you can drive from Limerick in about 40 minutes. I had a ball there and want to go again. I wrote a review about my time there - https://travelupdate.com/foynes-flying-boat-museum/ - but you may not want to see it as it may spoil some of the surprises. It's a great place though, so definitely do it!

Thanks so much for the logs, they are a fascinating piece of history. I love things like this!

kenko92

Some interesting flights there.
And including some RAF Ansons disguised as BOAC aircraft being delivered to Egypt !

bisonrav

I will at some point transcribe the letters which are tremendously interesting, not so much for the events they describe - these are just fairly routine flights - but for the minutiae of day to day life on long trips to the Middle East.

bisonrav

For anyone who's interested, I've scanned the remainder of the logbook which is at the same location as the link in the first placed, organised by the location he was based at. This includes some additional pages from the RAF flying on the same routes from Poole, and his later 511 Squadron career flying Yorks from Lyneham to the Middle and Far East, including transportation for the top brass of the time. Plus training at Pensacola, Virginia, and Wigtown.

kenko92

Although the Poole Sunderlands carried RAF markings they were in fact operated by BOAC.

bisonrav

The distinction between civil and military was a little blurred, and I suppose mostly because they tended to transit via Eire and Portugal, neutral countries that would intern servicemen and military equipment that arrived there. Towards the end of the log, the registrations change from civil to military and the "Capt" pilot becomes "Flt/Lt", though the destinations stayed largely the same. The Anson ferries to Cairo didn't land in either neutral country, and went via Gibraltar, then the crews were ferried back in Dakotas.

I found a very interesting document here which gives a lot of information on BOAC operations during this period.

What's very striking is the punishing schedules. Long day flights followed by lengthy night flying. May have been the reason why my grandfather didn't fly much after he left the RAF in 1946, I guess he'd had his fill of it. Sadly he died when I was quite young, suddenly of an aneurism, so I never got to talk to him and hear his stories. I inherited a heavy plastic fertiliser sack full of charts and books and mementoes, most of which have been lost over the years unfortunately.

bisonrav

I transcribed (not yet corrected or fully edited) one of the letter describing the trips, in late 1944. This was post BOAC, in fact 511 squadron and Yorks for transport command, but it continues essentially the same flying patterns so worth a look.

You can find it here

Very interesting to compare with modern TP run trip reports, and note things like the poor review of Gibraltar and how the crew get increasingly sulky and argumentative with the authorities towards the end of the trip. Plus ca change, basically. But it really fills out the detail of the log entries, not because it's exciting and dramatic, but for the banality of much of it.

FlightDetective

Wow, it is far longer than I expected!

The detail is excellent as these are the things a lot of people would skip writing about, but it really adds a whole lot of colour. I mean, who, apart from those who are there, know what people were doing in between flights when they were on trips? This is wonderful stuff!

Thanks so much for taking the time to transcribe it and to share it. It's pure history!