Category Archives: Non-operational

Friday, 23 January 1942

RAF Kabrit

Austin flies Whitley Z9159 in a 35-minute experiment to use the rear door from 2,000′. The number of passengers (if any) is not recorded, so it’s not clear whether anyone jumped.

It is not known for certain that the rear door was enlarged, but it would have to have been altered to open inwards before they set out from the UK; and the aperture would almost certainly have been enlarged at the same time.

Sunday, 18 January 1942

RAF Kabrit

F/Lt John Austin and 3 crew take Whitley Z9159 up for ‘local flying’; this is likely to be parachuting practice for the ‘7 passengers’ entered in his logbook. The W/Op flies as Rear Gunner; over Egypt the threat of a German fighter incursion cannot be discounted. His logbook records that they take off at 14.20, and the flight lasts 2 hours 10 minutes – Austin’s records the flight lasting 30 minutes longer.

Monday, 12 January 1942

Kabrit – Heliopolis return

F/Lt Austin accompanies P/O Munroe in Whitley Z9146 to RAF Heliopolis, taking 3 passengers for parachute training. They return the same day.

Stradishall

Flight Sergeant Sgt Alvin Wilbert Reimer, RCAF, dies from his injuries at Haverhill hospital. He is buried in the local cemetery. He is twenty-one years old.

Sunday, 7 December 1941

Newmarket

Ron Hockey, plus 8 crew, flies a 10-hour consumption test in a new Halifax. The Stradishall ops log records that Hockey’s ‘NF-V’ (L9613) and another Halifax identified only as ‘W’, will fly to Lakenheath: “V will do the cross-country as advised. W will fly Base – Linton – Uphaven (sic) – Base for 10 hrs.”

At 15.46 ‘W’ is airborne from Newmarket, followed by ‘V’ at 15.52, but at 18.35 Newmarket advises Stradishall that they have still not taken off from Lakenheath.

L9613 ‘NF-V’ is reported as landing at 05.54 (8/12/41), followed by ‘W’ at 06.20.

Sources

TNA AIR 14/2529
Logbook, R.C. Hockey