The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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205129 Killick. Dave Henry "Tom" Thomas Fleet Air Arm HMS Formidale from:London, England. My Father, Dave Thomas was in a reserved occupation until 1944 (I believe) He was then conscripted into the Fleet Air Arm. He sailed to America and travelled across the USA by Train to join HMS Formidable on the west coast, with the British Pacific Fleet. He was a mechanic, servicing the aircraft and did a course on Seafires which were a bit too fragile for aircraft carriers although they were still used. He mainly serviced Avengers and Corsairs. I remember him telling me of one occasion when he had just finished a service on a n Avenger and the Pilot came to ask him if it was ready. Upon confirming this he was told to get in the rear gunners turret and when my father asked why, the Pilot said, well you serviced it so if I go down so do you. He was in Sydney Australia on two occasions, I'm not sure of dates but I believe it was in 1945 and I still have some of the photo's he took of Sydney at that time, complete with Trams. When the war ended they returned to Sydney and were moored at Pier 1 alongside HMS Indefatigable. We used to have photos of this but are now long gone. Eventually they were advised that the Indefatigable was to go home the Formidables crew were, naturally upset. But just before the ship left both ships complements were marched down onto the docks with all their personal gear and the crews swapped ships! So the Formidables crew sailed home, first on the Indefatigable. My father achieved the rank of Killick and it was his inability to spell that stopped him becoming a Petty Officer. He died in 1984 at the age of 69 after along illness Derek Thomas Add to this record.  Related Content: HMS Formidable 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.