Product Information

This is something that rarely comes onto the market, and never are there any “fresh” items, but that’s just what this is. Totally fresh to the market, and has not been in a collection before. One man’s unique account of his war. It is a fascinating piece of history, both in the historical way, and social way.  Apart from anything else it is sad, as he died in Feb this year

I would like to share the post by Julian Mora…who has just informed us that a 619 veteran W/O. Ron Jennings W/Op..passed away today….’Blue Skies’ on your final flight Ron…..and many thanks for your service….Ron Jennings arrived at 619 Squadron with the crew of F/O. R. Bateman on the 23-7-44…and served until 6-1-45 by which time they had completed their tour…their first raid was on the 26-7-44 against Givors…which Ron explains below…………………………….. RIP…Ron Jennings. A true hero in so many ways.

Givors is a small town in France with a population of around 24,000 and was important because it had a large rail network and marshalling yards, ideal for troop movements.

As this was precision bombing our height over target was 7,000 ft and when we arrived the visibility was so poor that all aircraft were ordered to switch on their navigation lights to avoid any collision.

Our flying time on this operation was 9hours 32minutes.

As a crew we did 32 ops together and our crew members were as follows:

Pilot ………………….. R. Bateman
Flight Engineer …… E.Dutton
Navigator ………….. A. Cameron (Australian)
Bomb Aimer ………. B.Shepherd
Radio Operator ….. R.Jennings
Mid Gunner ………… H.Vanderkelen (Belgium)
Rear Gunner ……… L.AIIen (Australian)

A special tribute must be paid to our pilot Ray Bateman whos undoubted flying skills enabled the whole crew to complete this tour unharmed.

The book is filled out well, with some very interesting raids. One raid, on the 4^th Dec 1944 is well documented by bomber command…..

On the night of Monday, 4th December 1944, Bomber Command operated a total of 1,000 sorties. 535 aircraft were briefed to attack Karlsruhe, 283 aircraft to attack Heilbronn and 182 aircraft were despatched to Hagen, Beiefeld, Hamm with 47 aircraft on Radio Counter Measures and 60 aircraft on patrols. From the night’s operations a total of 18 aircraft: 15 Lancasters, 2 Mosquitoes and a single Halifax would be struck off charge. From these 18 aircraft there were 104 casualties: 80 airmen died and 24 airmen became Prisoners of War.

I do have copies from the National Archives on all of the flights and sorties. I was going to keep it, but have decided to let it go. This is a rare chance to obtain a log book that has NEVER been in a collection before.

619 Squadron is very well known, and documented