Flight Sergeant Ioan Arnold "Timmy" Lloyd - 247 Squadron (May-September 1944)

[Thomas Lloyd]

Hello everyone. This is my last ditch effort to find any possible surviving members of the 247 (China British) that flew in WW2. Specifically between May and September 1944. Or possibly ground crew at the airfields that may have known him.

My grandfather's brother was Flight Sergeant Ioan Arnold Lloyd. He went by the nickname of Timmy. He often appears in records as I. A. Lloyd.

He was a volunteer from Jamaica that ended up in the 247. He joined the squadron in May 1944 was KIA in September 1944.

According to a couple sites, he was shot down by a German pilot named Dietwin Pape, but in the records and the diaries, they state he was shot down by flak from the ground and no mention of enemy planes at all. I am thinking Mr. Pape may have been trying to inflate his numbers, but in all that chaos back then, who knows?

Anyway, I digress. I am aware that the window may have shut as many have died and we are nearing the end of the line for the rest. If anyone at all is still alive and remembers him, I would be most interested in having a conversation. Similarly, if anyone has diaries or letters that might have mentioned him, I'd love to talk with you too.

I have the archive's records and summaries from his flights.

I feel like all I will ever know is what was in the couple of diaries in the UK archives, but gotta take the shot anyway. You can reach me at LAFALOO@gmail.com

Thanks for your time ladies and gents.

P.S. there was a Flight Officer E.S. Lloyd in the 247 at the same time. That's a different Lloyd. No relation that we are aware of.

[Resmoroh]

Thomas, Hello and welcome,
Flight Sergeant Ioan Arnold "Timmy" Lloyd
b. 1923. Son of John Thomas Lloyd and Edith Lloyd, of Bushy Park, Jamaica.
Listed as Ivan Arnold Lloyd 931856 1940 RAF in www.forces-war-records.co.uk
Mid-April 1940 (mathematically) Enlisted 931856 in Block 900000-934899 RAFVR, Uxbridge 04-Jan-40 to 30-Apr-40
Pilot
d. 24 Sep 1944 Typhoon MN973 – close support operation Market Garden – crashed in the area of Kevelaer, Germany (GE 51.581349 6.245758).
HTH
Peter Davies

[Resmoroh]

As an OBTW.
I note, in the one photo of Lloyd that I’ve seen, he is still an Airman. He has a white flash insert in his field service cap which indicates he is Under Training (presumably) as a Pilot?
I also note that above the usual shoulder ‘shite hawk’ there is a nationality flash. I can’t read it, but I presume – in his case – it reads ‘Jamaica’?
I thought you had to Enlist in (a) the country, and (b) the nationality Number Block, to wear a nationality shoulder flash? In 1940 citizens of Jamaica would have been British Citizens? He Enlisted at Uxbridge? Under what set of KRs, or AMOs, were these shoulder flashes permitted – or not?
I’m not trying to hijack this thread – just to understand some of the technicalities it has thrown up!
TIA
Peter Davies

[Thomas Lloyd]

I have a few pre-war and 3 wartime photos of him. I believe I know the photo you are referencing (I have the original, or an original copy anyway. It was sent to my great grandparents and kept in the family since.

The shoulder flash in question visibly says West. So, in all likelihood it says West Indies. This is an assumption, but a fairly safe one.

Interestingly, I spotted a potential error. All the websites list him flying MN973 when he went down, but the log itself has him going up in MN365 on his last mission.

Further to that, MN973 was piloted by Plimmer on that same mission, then is flown again by both Lee and Crossley within a few days. Meanwhile, MN365 is not seen on the log again, presumably because it went down with Timmy.

[Chris Thomas]

Hello Thomas
I was a member of the 247 Sqn Association in the 80s and 90s and met a number of the pilots from the period of interest, however, I regret to say the ones I kept in touch with have all passed on. There may be others of course but they would be in their late 90s or older.

I assume one of your wartime photos is the squadron group photo, taken in the last week of August 1944, when Sqn Ldr McNair was handing over to Sqn Ldr Stapleton?

As for the discrepancy in the serial numbers quoted for the Typhoon in which your great uncle was lost ... I must point out that in this respect Squadron Operations Record Books can be unreliable. I have collated information from all available official sources, movement and accident records, logbooks, casualty reports etc, to build up a truer picture. There is little doubt that he was flying MN973 but why 247 Sqn's ORB compiler chose to record MN365 is a mystery. Usually the error occurs when the replacement aircraft's serial is used, or just a simple 'typo', but MN365 (ZY-N) although serving with 247 Sqn from April 1944 to 24 May 1944 when it was badly damaged requiring repair at a major repair unit (in this case Taylorcraft at Rearsby) is more difficult to explain.

I have just checked to see the cause of the accident - a wheels-up landing and the pilot was your great uncle! That coincidence suggests that there was some confusion in the squadron records when the ORB was compiled - hardly surprising when the unit had changed bases four times in just over three weeks!