That's a shame; he put a huge amount of energy into that site, and I remember him writing that he was recovering from illness when he started it. My rather selfish thought is, what will happen to the site now?
It's a damn shame really, he's put a lot of work in to the site over the years. Also makes me wonder what would happen to my site if anything were to happen to me.
Not wishing to belittle the fact that Sharp has passed away, always very sad, but as far as his site is concerned if it disappears, all one has to do is purchase a full set of 'Bomber Command Losses' by W R. Chorley (Nine volumes) Lost Bombers is an almost direct copy of Chorleys books and for some time a copyright dispute has been in the offering. Having said that I will be sorry to see it go. Regards Peter.
RIP Joe. I do hope the site stays up. Though I can understand the unhappiness of some people and forums about the way that the information from Chorley was used without die accreditation, I am of the opinion that it still provided a very valuable service. 1) because not everyone can afford to buy the entire set - we are talking about nearly £150 2) the lay researcher may not need to buy the entire set when they are only looking for one or two entries 3) the database is set up in such a way that broading searching is much easier Of course, copyright infringement is terrible, but in our fields of ww2 research we all know that the web is full of material copied without permission. Sometimes one has to access information where one can. Holding the moral ground isn't always possible
I have the set, I started collecting it when I lived in England, the last volume cost me $50 which hurts. Having said that, I thought that Sharp has researched the crews by using the books as a reference cross referencing with CWGC and adding the details to the site (it took him 11 years whatever he did). Even if he's copied it all it's a fantastic source of information for those families who don't want to buy the books but want to know a bit more about Dad/Grandad and what happened to him. It's out in the public domain where in my opinon this sort of information belongs, yes I know it took Mr Chorley a long time to compile but it's information that should now be made freely available to the public by the British Government om the ProCat site etc imo. Just my thoughts hope no one takes offence to them
Yes RIP Joe, Your site was a great help to me and thousands of others while those like Peter (CXX) has provided hundreds of pieces of info from the real thing. (Chorley)
I too would be sorry to see the Lost Bombers site go but I agree with RAFLibs. This information should be in the public domain and freely available to stop it from disappearing altogether. However you should always try to corroborate your information from a second source. I know this is a pain and can take ages but it eliminates the problems caused by errors and those arising where two or more people have the same name. Dual sourcing gives you a better chance of being accurate.
This news is a really big blow, especially to those of us out in the "sticks". Joe's site was of tremendous value and not withstanding the copyright issues, it provided an extremely valuable service. As a pro bono researcher, lostbombers was my first port of call to tease out missing information and will be greatly missed. God Speed Joe.
