What’s New?

“We would taxi into dispersal and tell the ground crews how things had gone.  We who were aircrew should never forget those over-worked, under-paid seldom mentioned and under-appreciated men who made it possible to do what we did”.

From “The Forgotten Air Force”, Air Commodore Henry Probert, Brassey’s, 1995

“Nothing recoverable was wasted.  No air force at war had ever been supported with this kind of mechanical tenacity or ingenuity”.

From “Finest Hour”, Clayton and Craig, Coronet Books, 1999.

Christmas Eve 2007

At long last, the site’s updated.  Some new material, but more importantly now this is out of the way, a start can be made on the large backlog of material provided by those who have visited.  It’ll take a while, but should be simpler now.

December 2007
Many thanks to Tim Gibbins, who has provided much useful material about his father’s time with 99.  W/O Geoffrey Gibbins served as a rear gunner, mainly with F/Lt Townsend’s crew, on Libs during the Dhubalia years.  Photos to follow.

December 2006

A long-overdue revision of the site, plus some fresh material.  

26th December 2004

Some general tidying up, added a ground crew pic from Waterbeach era, and a gentle reminder that I now have a few copies of McCredie’s book for sale.  Subtle, huh?   Plus the flashy new menu buttons.  

23rd May 2004

Added a few books to the Reading List, and added some captions to photos.  Thanks to Robert Robinson for the ID of the Avro York.

28th March 2004

Added a few more photos of crews on the Cocos, and tidied up some other photos and text.   Inserted a page on the ditching of Wellington HE 663 in the Bay of Bengal.  Now starting to plan Version 2 of the site.

22nd February 2004

Sadly TOM HENTHORNE passed away yesterday.  Tom was the driving force behind the first beginnings of the 99 Squadron Association, and the memorabilia on display in the early days of the Reunions were largely Tom’s work.  Missed by colleagues old and new.

30th December

Started to post a collection of Cocos photos provided by Andy Bonsell, from the collection of his grandfather Val Bonsell, who was groundcrew with 99 on the Cocos.

26th December

Added some Cocos photos, courtesy of Ralph Fergusson-Kelly

21st December

Added a few more crew photos, plus a couple of pics to the Engine Fitters’ Journey .  Added the story of Wellington HE106.

14th December

Added a few photos to the section on the Cocos  and another link or so.

7th December 2003

Added a Links page.

30th November 2003

Uploaded reformatted pages which will allow Mac users to access the site more easily, and allow me to expand the hyperlinks in due course.  Added The Engine Fitter’s Journey.   Added a discourse on Liberator gun turrets.    Awaiting responses so that I can add a Links page.

14th November 2003

Added a reading list, began adding the Hodkinson Collection of photographs.  This latter will run and run - there’s a lot of them!
Anyone out there have views on the value of adding a Guest Book?

7th November 2003

This is just the beginning - there’s a lot more to come, but it seems better to me to start with something small and simple and develop it over time.
To all those who have contributed material - many many thanks.