International Bomber Command Centre Ticket Portal

Thursday 28th November 2024 – 6.30 – 10.00 pm

Caterpillars, Guinea Pigs and Goldfish begins by briefly covering the history of some of the more well-known and perhaps some of the lesser known clubs that have been associated with flying and aviation.  It goes on to cover in rather more detail, the Goldfish Club, its history and members’ stories right up to the present day.  Art goes on to talk about the events leading up to his qualification for the membership including a short film showing.

William Henry Nelson was a first-generation Canadian Jew whose family name was originally Katznelson. Unable to afford a university education, he went to work in Montreal’s aircraft industry, but in 1936, at the age of nineteen, he left a humdrum life on the ground to go to England, intent on becoming a pilot in the Royal Air Force.

He was among the few Canadians to be commissioned as a bomber pilot long before the war. On completing his training he was posted to 10 Squadron, one of Bomber Commands foremost units. Willie (as his family and friends called him) was also a fine athlete. He was captain of his bomber squadron’s team in Britain’s Modern Pentathlon competitions in 1938 and 1939. While stationed in Yorkshire, he met Marjorie McIntyre. Instantly smitten, they married days before the war began.

Nelson was one of the first Canadians to fly in combat over Germany, only days after the war began in 1939, and six months later he was on Bomber Command’s first bombing operation on Germany. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for determination and courage in battle, particularly in the Norwegian campaign, and so became the pride of Jewish Montreal, his image appearing on recruiting posters and his achievements publicized across Canada.

Stuart has enjoyed over 35 years in the aviation industry in a variety of roles, including Captain of Boeing and Airbus aircraft for a large UK airline. In 2011, Stuart began researching the story of his late father, Alan Green, who served as a Navigator with RAF Bomber Command in World War 2. His talk begins with his Alan’s early life in Coventry, followed by his RAF selection and initial training at RAF Cardington and on the south coast in Torquay, when he learns of the destruction of his home city in the biggest single raid on the UK in WW2 (November 1940). Extracts from an emotional letter to his parents are followed by details of his airborne training in Canada under the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. His return to the UK in 1941 sees completion of his training at various OCUs and his posting to 218 Squadron at Marham. Having covered his first mission in December 1941 on a Wellington, the focus turns to his 3 most notable missions of his 23 operations. The first is the infamous “Channel Dash” when 3 capital ships from the Kriegsmarine broke out from Brest and made their way back to Germany, despite the attention of the RAF and the Royal Navy. The next is a top-secret mission against the Skoda factory in Czechoslovakia, the only Bomber Command mission conducted with the help of ground forces. Having described Alan’s first bale out from a Stirling, which was the result of a “friendly fire” incident, the talk then covers his 3rd most notable mission, the 1st 1000 bomber raid on Cologne. Finally, there is detail on Alan’s second shoot down by a German night fighter over Holland in June 1942. After a period on the run assisted by Dutch farmers, we hear about Alan’s capture and subsequent time as a POW in Stalag Luft 3 along with his 2nd pilot, Des Plunkett, who had a major role in the Great Escape, as “mapmaker” and 13th man out of the tunnel.  To conclude, the talk describes the aftermath of the escape, the “Long March” of POWs and subsequent liberation thanks to the Russians.

Jack Waterfall is Heligoland39 Project Leader. Jack and co-authors Doug Aylward and Caroline Kesseler, have spent the last seven years finding the families and meticulously researching the background and fate of the one hundred and thirty crewmen who flew in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the first named air battle of WW11.

It is a story to be told. In broad daylight, just seven days before Christmas, twenty-four 1c Wellington Bombers were dispatched from their stations in East Anglia and twenty-two flew into the sights of 200 battle hardened Luftwaffe on their approach to Wilhelmshaven, in bitterly cold winter weather conditions. The outcome was a thirty-minute baptism of fire that resulted in the loss of fifty-seven aircrew and half their bombers. Two Luftwaffe pilots perished that day. A disaster for the RAF.

This relatively small action and the story of those men is published in a six-hundred-page text, ‘Daylight to Darkness’. The book is not available to buy but is lodged for access in selected institutional libraries and education centres across the country including locally, at the International Bomber Command Centre, the University of Lincoln Digital Archive and Bishop Grosseteste University library.

The authors’ involvement was triggered by their personal connection to the loss of Wellington R3236 and its entire crew, three-days before the beginning of the Battle of Britain. It has become blatantly obvious that the crew’s commanders had not entirely learnt the lessons of seven months earlier. The deficiency in their bomber had not been addressed and the effect of Bomber Command’s change of policy from daylight missions to night operations was not fully understood.

The majority of the aircrew in those early days of the war were ordinary young men aged under 23. They came from families with no military connections. The frontline men leading them in the air were slightly older and benefited from flying experience within the RAF. The guidance they were able to give their senior commanders on the ground was crucial. Everyone was dicing with death and on a very steep learning curve.

Have we learnt any lessons as we witness the 110 modern conflicts raging around the globe today? Do modern generations understand the complexity of WW11? and Bomber Command’s controversial role in it? Which now has recognition due to the legacy of Tony Worth CVO and his vision to create the International Bomber Command Centre.

The evening starts with a delicious hot buffet supper in The Hub Café at 18.30.

Relentless Skies - The Most Efficient Airman

Air Vice-Marshal Don Bennett CB CBE DSO FRAeS is best known as the Australian commander of the Royal Air Force's elite Path Finder Force in the Second World War. His drive, determination and passion for excellence saw him play a principal role in prosecuting the bombing campaign against Nazi Germany.
Yet, the full story of his life has never been comprehensively explored. Few can recount his exploits as a pioneering aviator, or know why he was regarded as the most technically brilliant airman of his generation. Fewer still know the man's background, interests, passions and obsessions, or what drove him to his many aviation achievements.

Operation Exodus - the forgotten story of The Long March and the world’s largest airlift of people - Thursday 3rd April 2025 18.30

During nine weeks at the end of the Second World War in Europe in early 1945 more than 354,000 British, Commonwealth, and Allied former Prisoners of War (POWs) were repatriated by air in what was – and still is – the world's largest airlift of people.

The airlift involved many types of aircraft flown by crews from the RAF, RAAF, RCAF, USAAF, Polish Air Force, and French Air Force, a key element being the 72,319 former POWs flown by Lancasters of Bomber Command in Operation Exodus.

On what will be the 80th anniversary, aviation historian Mike Ingham recounts in this illustrated presentation the little known story of the forced evacuation of POWs on treks of 500 miles on foot, liberation, flights out of Germany, and eventual return home to England by air.

The evening starts with a delicious hot supper in The Hub Café at 18.30.

'Join Mark Aedy as he talks about his new book From Biplanes to Fast Jets: A pilot’s life in the Royal Air Force 1942–1973, a biography of Ken Aedy, a man whose flying career traversed a huge transformation in technology from biplanes to fast jets during the time of his service in the RAF.

Ken joined the Royal Air Force in 1942, aged eighteen, having had his medical in the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground. He was taught to fly in Oklahoma in 1942 and 1943, returning to the UK on the converted Queen Mary troop ship. He first went solo on a Tiger Moth, a biplane, and subsequently transferred to heavy bombers, learning on Wellingtons before becoming operational in Lancasters during the Second World War. He also dropped food supplies to the Dutch in Operation Manna and flew returning former Prisoners of War back home to the UK. He was still only twenty years old when the war ended in May 1945.

Ken elected to remain in the Royal Air Force after the war. He was posted to Egypt at the time of Israel’s independence in 1948 and subsequently to Singapore in 1950 where he also met and married his wife. He also participated in the lead up to the Berlin airlift and in the first ever Battle of Britain fly-past over Buckingham Palace. In the 1950s, he transitioned onto jets including the Meteor, the Hunter and, his favourite, the Javelin. He served in Germany and several stations in the UK, prior to being posted to Cyprus in the mid-to-late 1960s during the emerging Middle East crisis.

It is not the story of a hero, but rather the story of an ordinary man’s experiences throughout an extraordinary century of geo-political turmoil and rapid technological advances. A heartwarming, amusing and at times harrowing tale, featuring stunning photographs, paintings and diagrams of the planes he flew and key events he witnessed.