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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1892.PDF
658 FLIGHT, 17 November 1949 THEIR NAMES SHALL LIVE... Rolls of Honour of Nos. 1 and 5 Croups, Bomber Command, Deposited in Lincoln Cathedral WHEN the name Lincoln is mentioned in the samecontext as the words Bomber Command, manyof us visualize a famous aircraft rather than a city. But even were it not still the geographical centre of a group of bomber stations, Lincoln itself would remem- ber the momentous months and years during which the aircrews of the Command went forth from the surrounding countryside to write Germany's fate in letters of fire across her own skies. To those men the old city offered warmth, comfort and entertainment between the sorties they made from the bleak airfields of the Wolds; and they came to regard her as a symbol of safe return, so that for the crews of many squadrons, as they flew back at first light, there was no finer sight in the world than the three square towers of the Cathedral standing like faithful sentinels on the hill-top above the mist-veiled town. But some—and, as the scale of our bomber offensive The solemn and impressive moment as the Bishop of Lincoln receives the Ensign from S/L D. A. Green before laying it on the Altar. One of the Memorial Books can be seen in the foreground. steadily mounted, many—of those crews did not return. To-day their names are enshrined for ever in the heart of their foster-mother city. To say so is to speak literally, for on Tuesday, November 8th, the Memorial Books of Nos. i and 5 Groups, containing 21,000 names of aircrew lost on operations, were deposited in the Cathedral—in the official phrase, "formally consigned to the Dean and Chapter.'' If the total of 21,000 seems at once glorious and terrible, it must be remembered that these two groups—most of whose stations were in Lincolnshire or close to its borders— made a Herculean effort in Bomber Command's offensive. No. 1 Group, whose Memorial Book bears 9,000 names, flew nearly 58,000 sorties, beginning in the fateful 1939-40 period, when they flew Battles and Blenheims in France. No. 5, with 12,000 names now inscribed, was based in Lincolnshire throughout the war, and had as its A.O.C. for the first 14 months A.V-M. A. T. Harris, later to become Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris. Not, perhaps, unrelated was the fact that, while No. 1 was mainly occupied with lending its force to massed raids, No. 5 (which, incidentally, had many members of Common- wealth and Allied air forces among its crews) was fre- quently called upon to carry out special operations: some, such as the sinking of the Tirpitz and the attacks on the dams, were of a most spectacular kind; others, though they attracted less attention in the headlines, were no less successful or valuable to the war effort—among them were the continuous attacks on the V-weapon sites. That cap- tains of No. 5 Group aircraft earned nine Victoria Crosses is some measure of their magnificent tradition. The Ceremony Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old. But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red ..-• Sweet wine of youth. ... More than one of the vast congregation of relatives and friends who were gathered in the 13th-century Cathedral " to honour the memory of the twenty-one thousand must have recalled Rupert Brooke's poignant lines as a fanfare by the trumpeters of the R.A.F. Central Band echoed to the high-vaulted roof. As the golden notes died away, there walked, in solemn but colourful procession from The party formed up in the Airmen's Chapel for the dedication of the Memorial Books. On the left is W/C. D. R. Stubbs, with No. I Group's book; in the centre, S/L. Green bears the Ensign; and on the right, W/C. K. P. Smales holds No. 5 Croup's book. : B 2ft •
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