Another first timer on the Dresden raid Interestingly, I was just listening, for the umpteenth time, to Chapter 13 of Michael Veitch's Flak on the drive home. This chapter is about Dick Thomas who ended up being a Halifax pilot with 171 Sqn (100 Group) after he and his crew had numerous setbacks while trying to fly operationally. Their first trip was with three wireless ops and an array of jamming devices (they were 100 Group after all :becky during the raid on Dresden. As I was listening to the CD, I remembered this thread and my first thought was "Well, there's a coincidence, I wonder if it's the same crew" before realising we were talking different squadrons. Anyhoo, the coincidence is a good one! As an aside, one of the setbacks mentioned above that slowed the Thomas crew's progress to ops was after they had retrained on the Halifax (from the Stirling). Once they were ready for posting to a Halibag sqn in Italy, they were told they couldn't go as it was thought the Americans in theatre would not be overly friendly towards the crew's black Jamaican navigator, a Viv Cooper (another phenomenally skilled nav). The crew were disgusted but Dick Thomas reflected on his time in the US south as an instructor (another delaying set back) and felt it for the best (he instructed on single-engined aircraft but ended up flying bombers!). Reminded me of this thread - http://ww2chat.com/forums/war-air/1292-argentine-pilots-raf.html - which starts out as relevant but veers off on excellent tangets ...and this one - http://ww2chat.com/forums/books-films/1299-member-raf-indeterminate-race.html - where I even mention Viv Cooper but not by name!
