The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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1206637 Sgt. Harold Mclenon "Nobby" Blundell MID. Royal Australian Air Force 463 Squadron from:Weethalle Nobby Blundell was born in Blundell's Cottage in Canberra in 1914. lthough a qualified mechanic he was also a wheat farmer at Weethalle (near West Wylaong) in New South Wales when he was called up in January 1940. His preliminary training was at Richmond near Sydney and then Ascot Vale in Melbourne as a Fitter 2E after which he traveled to the UK and joined 456 RAAF Nightfighter Squadron on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales. In September 1942 he was remustered as a Flight Sergeant but a plane crash rendered him unfit for operational duties and he returned to 456 Squadron. In early 1943 he joined 617 Squadron for special duties. 617 Squadron were the Dam Busters and Nobby flew with the Lancasters during test drops of their bombs. On the night of 16/17 May 1943 617 Squadron attacked the Mohne and Eder dams causing considerable damage in Germany’s industrial centres in the Ruhr valley. Nobby Blundell’s role was to redesign the undercarriage of the Lancaster so it was able to carry the drum type bombs. In November 1943 he was posted to 463 Squadron which was based at Waddington in England as a Sergeant Engine Fitter. He was Mentioned in Despatches for his work during the D-Day operations in June 1944 and in October 1944 Blundell was sent to Russia to service Lancaster bombers attempting to sink the German raider, Tirpitz. After the war he ran a motor engineering business in Sydney until he retired in 1974 to live in Dubbo. He self-published five books on 467 and 463 Squadrons and was awarded a Medal in the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1995 for services to war veterans. He later moved to Cairns but died in Hervey Bay, Queensland on 13 September 2003. Add to this record.  Related Content: Royal Australian Air Force No. 456 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force No. 617 Squadron Royal Air Force No. 463 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force RAF Waddington D Day and the Battle of Normandy Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.