Air Force Index

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No. 18 Operational Training Unit Royal Air Force If you can provide any additional information, please add it here. Logbooks Do you have a WW2 Flying Log Book in your possession? If so it would be a huge help if you could add logbook entries to our new database. Thank you. View Logbook entries Those known to have served with No. 18 Operational Training Unit Royal Air Force during the Second World War 1939-1945. Boxwell DFC. William Desmond. Sqdn. Ldr. Sherman Eric Hempel. F/Sgt. (d.2nd August 1943) The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List Records of No. 18 Operational Training Unit Royal Air Force from other sources. The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website. Announcements The Wartime Memories Project has been running for 24 years. If you would like to support us, a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting and admin or this site will vanish from the web. 18th April 2024 - Please note we currently have a huge backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 263925 your information is still in the queue, please do not resubmit, we are working through them as quickly as possible. Looking for help with Family History Research?   Please read our Family History FAQ's The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors. If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web. If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation. Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the War? Our Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. We are now on Facebook. Like this page to receive our updates. If you have a general question please post it on our Facebook page. Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to WW2. We would like to obtain digital copies of any documents or photographs relating to WW2 you may have at home. 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Eric Hempel Sherman 18 Operational Training Unit (d.2nd August 1943) Eric Sherman is the uncle I never knew; he was one of my father's brothers, and he died before I was born. Eric was the 7th of eight children, and he was born in 1923 at Stanhope in the Goulburn Valley region of Victoria, Australia. His parents were Leonard and Anna Sherman nee Hempel. Anna died in 1936. All of the Sherman children received a good education, but Eric was the first one to get the chance to go on to secondary school and matriculate. After he left school, Eric worked on the family orchard at Stanhope and cut wood in the Rushworth bush during the down times. When War broke out, John Sherman joined the Australian Army. Leonard Sherman had served in the British Army in the Boer War. He was a trooper in the 112th Middlesex Co. of the Imperial Yeomanry. It must have been with a heavy heart that he waved one of his sons off to another war, followed by a second son a couple of years later. John returned home, officially in one piece, after serving in the Middle East and New Guinea. Eric presented at the enlistment office of the Australian Air Force in Melbourne immediately after his eighteenth birthday. So many young men had applied to join the RAAF, so it turned into a waiting game. He made the grade and signed up in January 1942. Basic military training at Somers in Victoria was followed by wireless and gunner training at Parkes in New South Wales. He was promoted to Flight Sergeant in November of 1942, and shortly thereafter learned he was to be seconded to the RAF in the UK. Eric landed in England in March of 1943. He spent time at 11 Personnel Dispatch and Reception Centre in Brighton, where he received Air Observer Training, before taking his post at 18 OTU on 7th July. His time there was short, but he did manage to buy a bicycle, took a train to Aberdeen, and went to visit his Scottish cousins. In the afternoon of 2nd August, 1943, Eric was the wireless operator and air gunner on a training flight when the pilot lost control of the plane. It crashed at Wroot and all four crew members were killed. Eric Hempel Sherman died a few days before his 20th birthday. His family members at home were devastated when the postmaster at Stanhope delivered the news. Their sadness meant that Eric was rarely spoken of. He was my uncle who died in the war. As I write this tribute, I remember him, and thank him for his service. RIP Eric Hempel Sherman 1923-1943. Your niece. Margie Brown Add to this record. Sqdn. Ldr. William Desmond "Boxy" Boxwell DFC. 150 Squadron William Boxwell was born in 1912 and died in 1984. He learned to fly in a Tiger Moth and BA Swallow in 1936/7 at Hooton Park in Cheshire, and in 1938 he joined the Civil Air Guard, and was commissioned as a PO in September 1939. In training he flew a wide variety of types including Hawker Hart and Hind, Gloster Gauntlet, Battle, Demon, Blenheim, Oxford and HP Harrow. In September 1940 he commenced operations (unit unknown) and between then and April 1941 flew 12 operations on Whitley Vs. He was then transferred to Instructional Duties with 18 and 19 OTUs and between then and early 1943 was mainly at Kinloss with the rank of Squadron Leader. In March 1943 he transferred to the infamous Manchesters and later Lancasters, taking a drop in rank to do so, but flew no operations on these, transferring in about August 1943 to Wellingtons and being posted with 150 Squadron to North Africa as a Flight Commander at Kairouan. He flew 28 ops between then and May 1944, taking command of the Squadron as a S/L during this period in succession to S/L. In May 1944 he was attached to 330 Wing (the only RAF unit to come under US command during WW2) and although it is not recorded in his logbook he spoke in the 1960s of having flown as an observer on the infamous Ploesti raid (Operation Tidal Wave) which was so costly for the USAF. A photograph from this period, now lost, described him as Acting Wing Commander. In July 1944 he was awarded the DFC. In late 1944 he flew two further ops on a Venbtura, and was then transferred to the Middle East where he spent the rest of the war instructing SAAF pilots in 76 OTU. His final posting was as Station Commander of the firefighting unit at Moreton-in-Marsh, and he was demobilised sometime in 1946, thereafter undertaking periodic refresher training on Tiger and Chipmunks up to mid-1953. Christopher Storey Add to this record. Recomended Reading. Available at discounted prices.

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