230807 Samual Charles Humphry Royal Air Force 101 Squadron I am looking for help in fulfilling the wish of a war hero from RAF 101 Lancaster squadron.
Recently I watched the 80th anniversary flight of the Spitfire from Southampton airport.
Living local to the Solent it seemed a great opportunity to try my new zoom lens out.
After taking a few photos and feeling happy for seeing the iconic aircraft manoeuvring up and down Southampton water I thought I'd head home and look at the pictures.
I was just about to turn and leave when I heard an elderly gent that I didn't realise was standing next to me make comment "what are you going to do with that? Shoot the bloody thing down?" referring to the 300 mm lens attached to my camera. It brought a smile to my face to look down and see this elderly gent standing next to me with a smile on his face , I replied "no I'm only taking a few pictures"
He looked at me and said "you should be taking pictures of Lancasters son , that's what I flew in during the war" , I was not sure what to make of him at first as he didn't quite look old enough to have done such a thing" really" I replied, "tell me more ", with this he continued to tell me about his time as a radio operator with 101 squadron, he looked at me and said " you don't believe me do you? come with me to my car" , I was surprised to see that he had driven himself to the marina that I was viewing the spitfire from. He showed me photographs of his time in the war. He then told me things about his time with the squadron and the missions that they flew.
"It's not that I don't believe you sir" I said "I'm actually quite taken aback to be listening to your story "
He continued to tell me how in previous years he had attended the 101 squadron reunions , but last year his wife of 68 years had passed away and he feels it's now too far for him to drive alone , he continued to describe the reunions and how in the 1980's he had been at a reunion in Ludford Magna, where he saw a picture on the wall of 101 squadron, just the crew members, as he remembers approximately 70-80 airmen gathered from the wing towards the rear of the aircraft, with the code letters SR on the side of the aircraft , he recognised himself in the picture, and he recalled the picture being taken in the years 1945-1946.
The following year the picture was missing from the reunion , and from that day he has wondered where the picture had gone, it was the only picture that he can recall of seeing with just the aircrew in the picture.
Well after describing this to me he looked at me and said , "I'm not up to all this internet stuff, could you possibly do something for me? It would absolutely make my day if I could see this picture ,or a copy of it again".
After meeting this man and listening to a short description of his RAF career, and seeing how humble he is about being a war hero that lost many friends, and hearing him say that he thought he was about to lose his own life on more than one occasion, how could I not offer to help find his picture? He gave me his details and looked at me and said "it would mean the world to me if you could just look for me, and now son you are holding me up with my morning walk, and I cannot stand around talking to you all day" this was said with the same wit that he had shown during our chat, and off he went smiling at me as he walked away.
I stood for a while smiling and thinking "did this just happen?". It's not every day a war hero approaches you and catches your attention the way he did , and leaves you thinking how special these men are and were.
If you know of anywhere that I could search for this picture, or any websites that I could look, I would be very grateful.
|