raf air sea rescue service

For anyone who is interested in the RAF Air Sea Rescue service of WW2 and who believes that these forgotten heroes did an amazing job saving many 1000s air crew lives in the war. I was like the others, single, my home was gone, that was it. Aircrew operating over any stretch of water could always count on the ASR boys coming to their aid. Where we hold a names list for the memorial, this information will be displayed on the memorial record. And the next thing you see is a spurt of water coming up out of the engine.. We had a good cure for that, we never had time for drilling out and putting new studs in, we had a box of bullet-hole plugs in the engine room, you know the files they use on the beer kegs, that shaped, tapered, of different sizes, point 5, 303, 20mil, all different sizes, and when you got shot up you hammer these into the side of the boat to keep the water out, So you hammer these in where the studs had come out till you got back to harbour — there were no stores in the channel, you really had to make do and mend on the run. The Air Sea Rescue airmen did a magnificent job from 1941-45, rescuing hundreds of downed RAF and USAAF aircrew. The RAF Air-Sea Rescue Service in the Second World War (Images Of War) - Kindle edition by Franks, Norman. When the Second World War began in 1939 it was thought that it would be fought along the same lines as the First World War, with the Allied air forces operating from both Britain and France. From then onwards, RAF aircraft operating over enemy and enemy-held territory necessitated flights across both the North Sea and the English Channel. those of the BBC. We only came over really in case anyone hit mines on the way through. The same if we went to the pub, we all went together as a family, skipper and all, so they knew where to find us, and if we happened to be in the pub and the call came through, they’d say “Sorry lads, got to go” and if we went back in later on “You didn’t finish your drinks last time, here’s more” and at a dance they’d stop the band, the MC would say “Air-sea rescue return to base” and we’d go out to the cheers of all the soldiers, they’d got rid of the RAF! So that’s how I could get these, because I had the film to do it. I wouldn’t have swapped it for all that, you were never really off duty. The Air Sea Rescue airmen did a magnificent job from 1941-45, rescuing hundreds of downed RAF and USAAF aircrew. I don’t know the width of the minefield, because I was in the engine room, and didn’t see much of the life there, not unless we stopped to have a pot-shot at the targets on the way back, We had three boats at each base, and either we were on duty — we slept on board — on call twenty-four hours a day, stand-by, slept in a hut on the dockside, and if the duty boat went out they became duty boat, and the stand down, not off-duty, mind you, if you went out you had to log where you were going, to a dance, or a cinema, it was logged down, so if you went to the cinema, the cinema manager got a call, and up on the top right-hand corner of the screen there used to come the badge and A S Rescue return to base., we never got charged to go to the cinema, because we never saw the end of the film! I don’t know if you realise, but you should have been liberated in the September the year before, A RAF Rescue Launch came down to St Peter Port with a high-ranking German officer, prisoner-of-war, with an Army major in charge of him, made up to be a major for the day, and the object of the exercise would have been to get the commandant out to the boat, where he would have been ordered to surrender the island of Guernsey by a senior officer, but they couldn’t get the blighter out, so no choice but to go back to the UK empty handed, the message went back “Starve them out” The Vega’s got food for the natives, starve the Germans out. — and I had a friend who used to load all the film up for the aero cameras, what he’d do when he’d loaded all the cameras up, if he had a length of film over, he’d put it to one side in the darkroom, and I had a 120 roll film, he’d develop my film, and cut a strip off, stick it in the backing paper, roll it up again, and pass it on to me.. Very disappointing when you come back with no body, they might come down straight behind you, they go straight down, nothing comes up, but when you did get a fish, you were happy. If one was out of service, I’d go on another boat. That’s a lot of mother’s sons. Well you know the effect of salt water on mild steel. More than 74 years of history has come to an end with the closure of the last RAF Search and Rescue (SAR) base in the UK. There were two of us in the engine room, because if you were stuck down there for a long time you needed a bit of comfort to go up on the deck and relieve yourself, I wouldn’t swap the job for the world, yes, it was dangerous, but it was very rewarding. At the outbreak of the war, I had just left the naval training school, which I had joined at the age of eleven, failed my final medical because I was half-an-inch too short, so with the war started I went down the road and I joined the Royal Air Force, and for my sins I was moved into the marine section of the Royal Air Force, which was Air-Sea Rescue, where I spent the rest of the war, so I never got away from the sea. We add around 200,000 new records each month. If it was a German we picked up, we brought him back to England, POW camp, at least he went home to Mum at the end of the war. 63foot long. public. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. One of the boats I went on was 122, what we call a whaleback, because of the shape of the hull. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google If they failed to return, or dropped short, then we had to go through the minefield to bring them back home again. By creating an account you agree to us emailing you with newsletters and discounts, which you can switch off in your account at any time, 324 people in our Forces Reunited records, 2 million exclusive records, found only on our site, Records transcribed in the UK for maximum accuracy, 1 on 1 Personal assistance from military photo and document experts, Access to Orbats mapping tool, allowing you to trace your WW1 ancestors steps. Most of the content on this site is created by our users, who are members of the Edited transcript of a videotape interview. Register with your email address now, we can then send you an alert as soon as we add a record close matching the one you were searching for. The Stalin-kaganovich Correspondence, 1931-1936. referenced. The Air Sea Rescue airmen did a magnificent job from 1941-45, rescuing hundreds of downed RAF and USAAF aircrew. So that’s how I got my wartime photographs, including a cheeky one of the escorting Navy gunboats going across for D-day. Every time a plane left the country, we had to put top sea, and if they were on a bombing raid we would go about half way out to where the minefield ran from the Straits of Dover down to Cherbourg right down the centre of the Channel. By then the troops were moving down the Cherbourg peninsula, so supplies were getting cut off from France to here. The Air-Sea Rescue covered the whole world, with the exception of the eastern sea boards of Canada and the United States, which we left to them to do, but Iceland, all round the UK, Mediterranean, Africa, Indian Ocean, Far East. Walrus squadrons operated just as successfully in this theatre as around Britain. This is their story. This record comprises all information held by IWM’s War Memorials Register for this memorial. In its pre–1941 guise as the Air Sea Rescue service, the RAF had an inventory of over 200 motorboats, supported by float aircraft engaged in rescue, towing, refueling and servicing RAF aircraft. But there were no aircraft in existence at that time that were designed for such a task: initially all that could be done was to use land 'planes to help locate anyone in the water, drop a dinghy to them, and then guide a boat to their position. RAF Air-Sea Rescue/ Marine Craft Sections Club. It took a special type of airman to undertake these rescues - and another kind of courage. Terms of Service apply. I got my films — these were all taken on my camera - only a cheap little camera I had, - couldn’t afford much else on my pay! As the war in North Africa developed, Walrus aircraft were needed in the Mediterranean, and later on either side of the Italian coast. We never asked for a passport, it never worried us whether they were Army, Navy, Air Force, male, female, it made no difference to us, it was always some mother’s son or daughter. It took a special type of airman to undertake these rescues - and another kind of courage. Often we’d sit on the edge of the minefield which stretched from Dover right down to the Cherbourg peninsula, and we’d sit on the edge of that, wait for the last men to come back, and if they fell short, then we’d no choice but to go through the minefield.