Air Force Index

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Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group 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 Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group during the Second World War 1939-1945. Duxson Joan. McFadden Isabel. McLaren Pat. Mottram Angela Kathleen. LACW. 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 Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group 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. 27th 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 264001 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. If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted. World War 1 One ww1 wwII second 1939 1945 battalion Did you know? We also have a section on The Great War. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations. Want to know more about Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group? There are:-1 items tagged Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group available in our Library   These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. Pat McLaren Decoy and Concealment Pat McLaren served with Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group at GPO in Shepparton Colonel Turners Group. Add to this record. Joan Duxson Decoy and Concealment Joan Duxson served with Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group at GPO Shepparton in Colonel Turners Group Add to this record. Isabel "Scottie" McFadden Decoy and Concealment Isabel McFadden served with the Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group at GPO Shepparton, in Colonel Turners Group. Add to this record. LACW. Angela Kathleen Mottram Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group Angela Mottram served with the WAAF at GPO Shepperton in Col Turners Group on Decoy and concealment, Mum didn't get a chance to tell us much about her war service as she wasn't sure if her group's papers were still covered by the official secret's act but when Colin Dobinson's book Fields of Deception was published for English Heritage, she realised that she was free to speak! Born in 1920 she was a secretary in London. Most of her brothers joined up in the RAF so she decided to do the same and in 1940 joined the Home Defence RAF Decoy & Concealment Group that was being created by Colonel John Fisher Turner and run out of Shepperton Film Studios. As the WAAF girls in the group were largely used for signals (they were put into one of four groups for different types of signals) this required shift work so she opted to live in digs rather than travel from her home in Enfield. Mum was sent to Morecambe to do some of her signals training. She told me that they were pretty boring signals that she was receiving and sending! Her section was working on providing the raw materials needed for the dummy aircraft and pyrotechnics for the fake airfields, towns and aircraft factories. Even though she said that the work wasn't very glamorous, it was secret as, once a fake site became identified, it was compromised so had to be abandoned in case the enemy spotters discovered it. They would then be inclined to doubt the authenticity of other decoy sites. Another section of Colonel Turner's Group took signals from the operators of the decoy sites giving estimates of the number of pounds of enemy bombs that landed there, so deflecting them from other real key places like towns and cities such as Sheffield and Hull, and aircraft factories such as Bristol. Their estimates are thought to be conservative but still total several thousand tons of deflected bombs. Something to be proud of! The attached photos were taken on the Shepperton Film Studios site where they had their offices, as well as having the assistance of the studios' carpentry and set-making teams. The old house, Littleton House, is visible in the background just after it had suffered bomb damage hence the tarpaulins. Mum always felt guilty about this as she swapped her night shift so that she could go to a dance, and then the colleague that she swapped with was injured during the air raid that happened at Shepperton while she was doing Mum's shift. Mum said that the full group at Shepperton was made up of WAAF and actual RAF flyers (some retired ones), all under the watchful eye of Colonel Turner. They were also included in some of the work for Operation Overlord. Mum's particular friends in the group were Isabel McFadden (known as Scottie), Joan Duxson and Pat McLaren (who emigrated to Australia). Ruth Ranger Add to this record. Recomended Reading. Available at discounted prices.

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