Some pictures of my grandfather's service (427 Bomber Squ.)

[Cold_Gambler]

Went to dinner at my Aunt's place tonight.

I'd asked her if she could pull out some of his war-time stuff for me to look at. Here are some pictures:

My grandfather served with 427 Bomber Squadron from '42 until '45:

He worked in the intelligence section (aerial reconnaissance). Here's a picture of his kit bag, "wedge" and a cannister of undeveloped film negatives:

The images on the negatives appear to be of potential targets, many bridges and a railhead next to a river. I say potential targets because there is no apparent damage to the structures and a complete absence of bomb craters; most of the footage was taken at high altitude with a camera pointed straight down, but some of the images were taken at lower altitude (~1000-2000 ft is my guess) and sideways from a position just behind the trailing edge of the aircraft.

Here's a Lanc; note the sheep (below #1 engine)

Here's an interesting photograph (sorry about the "flash-glare"- I suck)- it's difficult enough to see in the original but there are about 8 lancasters heading home, one of which is trailing a long plume of fuel from the starboard wing tank:

This is his mess kit:

And here are his medals:

Nothing of great note, mostly recognition for his service.

I'm quite sure there are more reconnaissance photos/negatives. I have a (mistaken?) recollection that there is a large tube (approx. 3 feet long by 2 in diameter) in my aunts basement but she didn't seem sure what I was talking about.

Hope you found this of interest, sorry about the size of some of these-

C_G

[B16Enk]

Thanks M8, nice to see history like this.

Amazing that his kit bag and mess kit are still there, and the tin of negatives sounds fascinating.

[Blairgowrie]

Thanks for posting Angus. Some unique and interesting stuff there.

[delta7]

nice pictures mate- Its nice to see historical aviation items with links to our squad mates. And you should not be so modest , your grandfathers service history , like so many others, is much appreciated by many in UK .

[Waldo.Pepper]

Thanks

My Father was RCAF during the war too. I can ID the centre decoration right off the top of my head as my Father also has it. It is the Volunteer Service Medal with clasp. The clasp indicates overseas service.

[JensenPark]

Thanks Angus!

Hope you can share more.

Appreciate the effort you made getting these to us.

[Dubbo]

Fantastic stuff Angus. Thanks for putting that stuff up. Most of it seems in amazing condition.

[Cold_Gambler]

My pleasure guys. I knew you'd appreciate the pics.

There was other stuff:

-his ID card, pay-book, a RAF issue correspondence case, other pictures of that same lancaster, pictures of his mates, a picture of the King and Queen apparently on a visit to the airbase, some pictures of a sea-side village. Very interesting correspondence from my grandmother in Canada to him (she was not especially happy that he'd gone overseas leaving her with my 2-5 year-old father :wink: ).

I'm really hoping that we can find that large tube of reconnaissance prints; that little tube of negatives was interesting but showed essentially three photo runs: so most of the pictures overlap. That tube, as I recall it, contained any developed images of different locations.