Progress With CC Losses Volume 2 & 3

[Oldduffer]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Progress with getting a second volume of Coastal Command losses in print is going well and 1942 records and a couple of months of 1943 have been translated into ‘book’ format. Air Britain has confirmed that they will take the book (there are probably two volumes). I have proposed a couple of minor changes and I am adding some info and comment where I think it will be useful. The project, however, remains very much the work of Ross and it will be his name on the BY line.

I have some information regarding the contribution by the USAAF and later the USN and that is being added, as is some CC aircraft working (as they now say in the forces) ‘out of area’.

I am anxious to borrow a copy of the book “8th and 9th Air Force Losses Vol 1”. The only copy I can find is for sale at £180.00!!! Alternatively, if somebody would like to trawl their copy for the US aircraft losses, that would be equally helpful – not to mention the free copy of CC Vol 2 in due course!

Colin Cummings

[Pierre Renier]

Hello Colin

I have a copy of the '8th and 9th Air Force Losses Vol. 1' and would be happy to do some look ups for you.

I'm delighted this continued series will get to see the light of day so any little I (and no doubt others) can do to help, will be happy to pitch in.

Kind regards
Pierre

[paulmcmillan]

Colin

"I have some information regarding the contribution by the USAAF and later the USN and that is being added, as is some CC aircraft working (as they now say in the forces) ‘out of area’.
"

Can you clarity this with an example please of what you mean as I am a bit confused

Thanks
Paul

[Ross_McNeill]

Coastal Command unlike Bomber and Fighter Command exercised operational control over some American units both in the UK and at points on the Atlantic supply routes.

In the late 1942 UK examples of detached 8th USAAF units at St Eval operating under Coastal Command control were 1st and 2nd Antisubmarine Squadrons and in Iceland USN VP-84.

Moving towards 1943/44 USN VPB 103/105/110/115 were operating from Dunkeswell.

I had started to include these losses and others with the intent to expand to FAA units under similar Coastal Command control but this part remains to be fully detailed in the manuscripts passed to Colin.

Other losses included were those from No.61 Sqn Bomber Command when it was loaned to Coastal Command and the odd aircraft on Coastal Command strength but operating on detachment out of area eg Med as well as full Squadron detachments such as No.53 Squadron but there remain isolated cases needing revisits.

Ross

[paulmcmillan]

Ross

Thanks for explanation


Colin - Please check your nimbuspublishing email account

If you have another email -please PM me

Paul

[Oldduffer]

Pierre and others, thank you for your interest and offers of help and my apologies for not acknowledging the offers sooner. No excuses for my bad manners - my mother would have smacked the backs of my legs and sent me to bed with no Tea!!!!!!!!

Things continue to go well and I'll keep people updated in due course.

Colin

[Oldduffer]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I undertook to update progress with “Coastal Command Losses – Vol 2”.

I believe the project will probably require another volume after ‘2’ and this would mean CCL2 covers 1942/43 and CCL3 will deal with 1944/45, the Coastal training and special units and hopefully a ‘sweep up’ of the rest of the world maritime stuff.

It will be very obvious that the last year has proved difficult for getting to various records but the availability of Air /27 files, free of charge, has been both useful and frustrating in equal measure and many important events and information seems not to have reached the RAF Forms 540 and 541. A huge amount of reading published work and other secondary information has been a great help – it has also boosted Mr Bezos’s ‘pension pot’, increased the weight of my bookcases and irritated the Distaff – so it’s not all bad news!!

The current status is as follows.

The original files from Ross have been turned into a format broadly similar to that of CCL Vol 1. At present this information is being compared to other available stuff and there are a number of additional records being added and this includes some ‘coastal’ aircraft operating ‘out of area’ but still being on the command’s ‘books’. With the help several people on this forum, I have added USAAF and USN records but I have not included RN aircraft.

Additional information in the book will include the de rigeur Organisation charts and summaries of U-boat losses to aircraft, the convoy systems, weapons and tactics and the Strike Wings.

The book is to be published by Air-Britain and the manuscript will be with them by the end of the month. I have asked Ross to write a piece but as indicated when this project restarted, the intellectual property rests with Ross and it will be his ‘BY’ line.

Colin Cummings

[Pierre Renier]

Colin

Many thanks for the update and I am sure like many will be delighted to hear the CCL2 has progressed so far that a manuscript is approaching completion.

Some while back I recall Ross McNeill saying it was an intention to include Admiralty Codes in the latter volumes to help people reading CC ORBs, is this still a plan?

Kind regards
Pierre

[Oldduffer]

Pierre,

Thank you for your response above and the comment re 'Admiralty Codes'. I do not know what these codes are and have not seen any mention of them in the work Ross gave me: the short answer, therefore is 'No'. If you are able to give me an example, therefore, I shall see what I can do. At this stage, it might mean including the information in the next volume, rather than hold up further Vol 2.

I do have information from Ross about Convoy routes and codes and my search beyond Ross's work, leads me to believe there were more than 300 Convoy codes, to which must be added a numeral. Many Convoy codes were either very short term or used only for a specific event and in some cases the identity codes were changed during the conflict. If these are the codes to which you refer, then ignore what I wrote above because I have these.

Best wishes

Colin Cummings

[Pierre Renier]

Hello Colin

'Admiralty Codes' is system of lat/long codes that seems to have been unique amongst Coastal Command in the work they carried out in conjunction with the various Royal Navy commands.

Unlike AIR 27 records for units of Fighter Command and Bomber Command, where they utilise map co-ordinates that can be found on wartime GSGS and AMS maps, the same AIR 27 ORBs for CC records will only quote these Admiralty Codes. At the very least from what I've noted, they were used from 21 degrees West to 20 East and 43 North to 68 degrees North. It has been touched on over the years on RAFCommands, however I've listed two discussions below which will throw light on the matter.

http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/sho...-in-March-1941
This first link is amongst a more recent discussion but under post #7 you see reference to a publication by what was then the PRO and now TNA at Kew.

http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/02471.php
The second link is from just over 18 years ago, but here Ross makes reference to creating a webpage with the data, however I believe subsequently when the first of the losses books came out it was then intended to use them as an appendices in subsequent volumes.

I hope this helps clarify to what I was making reference and that maybe, just maybe, in the future something will appear in future CCL volumes. I've still never found anything amongst ADM 186 and will have to await the full re-opening of TNA to trawl the entirety of the CC Group ORBs and appendices to see if the relevant data can be deduced amongst the paper trail. In the meantime I'll keep my fingers crossed they make a surprise appearance in CCL.

Many thanks for your response and my continued thanks for helping these follow up volumes see the light of day.

As ever, kind regards
Pierre