BUSY WITH AUSSIES IN WEST WALES 2023 - Again
We've been at it again..........Having hosted a former OC10 of the Aussie No 10 Sqn earlier this year, former RAF 10 Sqn Victor pilot John Rattenbury has been at it again by kindly offering to assist an 81 year old Australian lady who wrote to us earlier this year asking for information about her father. He had been lost serving in an Aussie Sunderland flying boat in September 1943 while based at RAF Mount Batten, Plymouth. His daughter, Maureen Kutner's story is a heart-warming 'must read' tale and can be found by clicking on the 'Aussie Visit' link further down this page.
It would therefore appear that we are becoming quite popular with Australian ladies as readers may recall the young Aussie schoolgirl who wrote to us nearly two years ago asking for information about her relative who had been lost on the RAAF 10 Sqn Sunderland based at Mount Batten in WW2.
This time we learnt that Maureen was born just two weeks before her father Sgt Sydney Leech left his home in Melbourne to fly with 10 Sqn RAAF in the UK's Coastal Command. He was a fitter/engineer on the Australian squadron's Sunderland flying boats which carried these extra crew members on their long 'Battle of the Atlantic' patrols. Sgt Leech was lost over the Bay of Biscay on 21 September 1943, presumably shot down by a German Ju88 whose squadrons were based near Bordeaux and Nantes in western France.
Maureen who, having lived in Melbourne all her life, lost her husband last year and then moved to Queensland just south of Brisbane, to be near her son Darrel and his family.
She came to the UK in September on a pilgrimage to see where her unknown father last flew from. In a whistle-stop tour of the UK, she visited the Runnymede Air Forces Memorial to see the plaque with her father’s name on it and then travelled to Plymouth where she was fortunate to be given a sea-trip boat ride to the former RAF Mount Batten. She then had the long train journey to Pembroke Dock where she met our member John Rattenbury who acted as her host and guide.
He introduced Maureen to a group of enthusiasts who have formed the Sunderland Heritage Centre: No 10 Sqn RAAF was based there before it moved to Mount Batten in 1942. The Centre are hoping to restore a Sunderland flying boat which has been brought ashore there after sinking at it’s moorings during WW2 and they have many items of memorabilia on display there.
Here at the Heritage Centre, where she was given VIP treatment by John Evans, a trustee historian, John Rattenbury then presented her with a small gift from us, in the form of a framed memento which link both the RAF's and RAAF's 10 Squadrons. Her gift had been prepared in advance by our webmaster Dick King, to whom the initial enquiry from Australia had reached. It comprises a metal plate on which the two Squadron badges of the Australian and our own RAF 10 Squadrons were mounted side by side in a frame. (the twin badges being personally made to requested sizing on the same aluminium plate, by the kind owner of the Ebay website shop at Pictureshack, Chippenham.) - Ad: These plates are on sale at very low prices.
After a day’s sightseeing in Pembrokeshire hosted by a lady who is a past Mayorof Pembroke and a leisurely Sunday Lunch with John and Ruth Rattenbury, Maureen left for Australia just a couple of days later: - her lifelong mission to see where her father had lost his life from, was now complete.
After an 11 hour transit stop in Singapore on the way home, she must have been shattered on her return to the Queensland sunshine but nevertheless was later glowing in her emailed gratitude to our Association for providing the key to learning about her father’s loss 80 years ago to the day on 21 September 1943 in Sunderland DV 969. Our gratitude goes yet again to John and Ruth Rattenbury for hosting Maureen.
Click on the link here AUSSIE VISIT to open the attached pdf file which includes Maureen's narrative and photos of her pilgrimage to the UK.
The Sunderland Heritage Centre's Press Release may be seen by clicking on that link to it as well. They were most kind to host Maureen's visit at their HQ.
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Immediately after that busy week for John, he was able to greet the Mayor of Pembroke Dock on Friday 20th October when he attended the official opening of a maritime library close to the Pembroke Heritage Centre.
John has been busy over the past months cataloguing the many volumes that have been acquired by the library and his efforts came to fruition with the official opening of the Joan Hague Maritime Library.
Many congratulations John for your sterling efforts. You deserve one of King Charles' Volunteer MBE's, recently awarded to all IBCC volunteers, who include our Association member Susanne Pescott. However, in spite of my last name, I regret that I hold no sway in that matter. - Web Warden.
G'day Everyone,
Gp Cpt Reg Carruthers (RAAF Ret’d) was a former commanding officer of the Royal Australian Air Force No 10 Squadron which is presently based at RAAF Edinburgh on the outskirts of Adelaide, South Australia. Equipped with 4-engined Orion aircraft the Squadron is soon to re-equip with Poseidon’s. After his 10 Squadron tour Reg later became the Station Commander at Edinburgh and was also an ADC to the Australia Premier. He now heads the South Australian Defence Department in Adelaide in a civilian capacity whose many responsibilities include the Woomera Weapons Ranges and its nearby town facilities.
A chance email sent to his department last year by our Web Warden Dick King, asking for information about the Australian 10 Squadron, went for reasons unknown, straight to Reg and he kindly put us in touch with the Edinburgh 10 Sqn which is presently commanded by Wg Cdr Marija (Maz) Jovanovich, the only female squadron commander in the Australian Air Force. Links were therefore established between the two 10 Squadrons.
The reason for this was that a young South Australian schoolgirl had inadvertently contacted the UK’s No 10 Squadron Association in asking for research information about the Aussie Squadron. Her in-depth research into the loss of a WW2 10 Sqn RAAF relative later enabled her to be one of a number of winners of an ANZAC prize, sponsored annually by the Premier of South Australia. Thanks to help in that project being given to her by the UK Association’s web warden, Dick King whom she had impressed by her initial mis-placed email inquiry, she was also invited to visit RAAF Edinburgh and allowed to spend time in the Orion flight simulator with her parents.
Her ANZAC prize entailed a flight to Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory with other young winners for a twelve-day visit in April 2023. In February 1942, two months after ‘Pearl Harbour', the same Japanese aircraft-carriers’ bombers had subjected Darwin to two large, surprise air aids. Staying in 5-star accommodation and visiting places of WW2 interest in the Darwin area, these new junior Anzac Ambassadors made many new friends whilst learning of their country’s wartime history. Links were therefore established between the two 10 Squadrons.
The Aussie Visitors to the Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre (PDHC)
(L-R) John Evans- (PDHC), Linda & Reg Carruthers, John Rattenbury – (UK 10 Sqn Assoc)
Reg Carruthers is in fact a Geordie from Gateshead who had left the UK aged 12 and in June 2023 he and his wife Linda visited the UK on leave.
Having been told of his interest in his former 10 Squadron which had flown Sunderland flying boats, firstly from Pembroke Dock and later from RAF Mount Batten, Plymouth, one of the UK 10 Sqn Association members John Rattenbury, arranged a visit for the couple to the Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre which has an impressive display of the Aussie Squadron’s wartime role. The Centre is also restoring a Sunderland that sunk at its WW2 moorings in the Harbour but has now in more recent times, been brought to the surface and ashore. A pleasant day was spent by the visitors and since Reg had been instrumental in putting us in touch with his own 10 Squadron, he was presented with a copy of our, ‘From Brooklands to Brize’ centennial history book by John Rattenbury. Reg and Linda's visit to Pembroke ended on a glorious evening spent with John at a pub watching the sunset overlooking Pembroke Harbour and having, Aussie fashion, ‘a few beers’.
Reg Carruthers receives his RAF’s History of 'our' 10 Sqn Book from John Rattenbury, who lives near Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire
Although not a Notification of a Recent Death of a member of 10 Squadron, which would then be in the Obituaries section, the following brief mention nevertheless of the passing of a former Squadron crew member has recently come to light and may be of interest to our viewers.
It follows a recent enquiry which put our Historian Ian Macmillan in touch with a member of the Newmarket Archives who then revealed the following to us:
EDWARD CHARLES JAMES GARDNER, DFM (24 August 1924 – 3 May 2010)
Born in Newmarket, Suffolk, James Gardner was a 10 Sqn Halifax Sergeant Air Gunner during WW2 and later became an English actor of some renown.
Having been posted to 10 Sqn at RAF Melbourne from No 1658 Conversion Unit based at RAF Ricall near Selby, Yorks in November 1943, he and his crew, captained by Sgt L. Fenny completed some 30 operational sorties before being screened in July 1944. Gardner was then posted to Abingdon where he joined No 10 OTU (Operational Training Unit) in an instructional role. (Readers are reminded that there was no direct link between that OTU and No 10 Squadron.)
Whilst there Gardner was awarded the DFM in October 1944 for his earlier 10 Squadron activities.
His first cinematic appearance was in 1964 in The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb and he subsequently appeared in numerous other films and TV shows as well as in stage performances. His talents ranged from Shakespearian appearances in the theatre, to roles in block-buster movies such as Harry Potter when he played Knight Bus driver Ernie Prang in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third film in the series of them.
Those interested in further reading might wish to follow these links.
Jimmy Gardner (actor) - Wikipedia
Gardner, Edward Charles James - TracesOfWar.com
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