No. 1667 HCU ORB after February 1944 ?

[jossleclercq]

Hello

No. 1667 Heavy Conversion Unit's ORB in AIR 29/614 at The National Archives in Kew ends in February 1944, while the unit was still in existence.

I'm interested in two crews (at least) who eventually came down in my research area, and I was keen to have a look in the HCU ORB to see if they were mentioned in it. They went through it around May 1944.

Does any forumite who was confronted to this same problem can point me to an alternative reference ? Station ORB may be ?

Thanks in advance

Joss

[78SqnHistory]

Joss,
I'm sure this has been discussed before as I was asking about my uncle who was there in 1944, are either of the crews you are interested from 78 Sqn? 78 seems to have received several large groups of aircrew from 1667.

Daz

[grounded]

All I have for 1667 HCU is a crew that came from No.18 OTU in 1944.Oct.
They went on to No.1 LFS Hemswell in 1944.Nov.
Then on to No.103 Sqdn where their first op was on 1944.Dec.15.

[PeteS]

This is one of two or three HCU ORB's which seem to end c. Feb 44, I asked at the National Archives and it seems that the later part had not arrived with them many years ago when the remainder of the ORB's arrived.

[greg]

Joss - The ORB does finish as you say in Feb 1944, and the records for the relevant stations beyond that date don't give any more clues at all. Not the answer you were looking for I know, but if I can help with you crew with any of my other 1 Group records, let me know.

All the best as always,

Greg

[jossleclercq]

Hello to all

Thanks all for your various comments and advices. A non-transfer from MoD to PRO/TNA seems to be almost impossible to "recover". Still, the volume is correctly bound, and goes from No. 1667 to 1668 HCU, so it can be that the problem is actually much older than this, when the compiling officer was forwarding his pages to the administrative level above him.

The two crews I'm interested in are the MEIER crew who was posted to No. 101 Squadron (a crew also researched by Dave aka "Alieneyes"), lost in July 1944, and the other is the UNDERWOOD crew, who was posted to No. 12 Squadron in late May. They were lost after a mere month of operational activity, on 29th June. I got the HCU reference from a combat report filed by one of UNDERWOOD's gunners (BEEVERS), so I want to see if there was anything there about them. There might be other crews who also went through No. 1667 HCU, but I'm not aware of that so far.

Daz, we have exchanged off board about F/L William John MURRAY's crew, 78 Squadron, KIA 14/15 June 1944. Did they go through No. 1667 HCU ? Same for the crew of
F/O Malcolm Stjernqvist BUCHANAN, crew partially lost during the night 18/19 July, with P/O HARMER's body washed ashore and buried in Etaples ?

Joss

[78SqnHistory]

Joss

Buchanan came from 1658 HCU, I'll have to do some digging on Murray and come back to you.

Regards

Daz

[greg]

Joss - does Beevers Combat Report mention which OTU he was at?

Greg

[jossleclercq]

Hello

Sure Greg. He went through No. 12 Air Gunners School, No. 83 O.T.U. and No. 1667 H.C.U.

I copied the first two at Kew, but no luck with the HCU. It was during the night 9/10 June 1944, he fired at a Ju-88 but made no claim.

Joss

[alclark]

In my experience the HCU ORBs which stop in the early part of 1944 restart on the following day in the Station ORB.