The 'Introduce yourself' Thread

Hi, I'm from Northern Ireland and my main interest in joining this wonderful website, is to find out as much information on my cousin as I can.
He was SGT Robert Henry Harper who served in the Royal Canadian Airforce as a gunner on a Wellington. He was killed on 25th Aug 1942 in Warrickshire. His bomber was x9929.

Any information on Bertie and the events of that day would be greatly welcomed.

Regards.

Rachel.

Welcome Tim63,
i also live in shropshire,
any images or information you wish to share please do, it will be gratefully received,
Regards Ian

Are you in contact with his daughter Sandra? She may have more information? Welcome to AIX www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/collections/virtu...toview/2714941/55522
Also the thread on here about the Memorial /community/showthread.php?2637-Wasperton-memorial which you've probably already seen.

Just a slight correction on the task of the Wellington that night in that it was on a night flying training exercise and not bombing
operations .

David wrote:

Just a slight correction on the task of the Wellington that night in that it was on a night flying training exercise and not bombing
operations .

Hi, my family lost contact with his daughter. Is there any reason why his plane would stall and crash? was it damaged from flak or was the weather bad? What would the night training involve, would he have been flying over sea's?
We have no idea if his body was found after the plane crashed in 1942, or in the 1970's when the plane crash site was being explored.

Midland Aircraft Recovery Group's website has the following;

25/08/1942 Wellington X9929 of 22 OTU stalled and crashed at Wasperton. P/O G L Shaw RCAF, P/O E F Stoll RCAF, F/Sgt A Leether RCAF, Sgt R H Harper RCAF and Sgt E T Spears RCAF were all killed.

Taken from here - www.aviationarchaeology.org.uk/marg/crashes1942.htm

22 OTU were based at RAF Wellesbourne Mountford, near Stratford, now a GA field. I think they were only used on the 1,000 bomber raids in 1942, of which this wasn't one, so I would assume it would have been a training accident. Any number of reasons why it would stall and crash, a relatively inexperienced crew with a tired old Wellington could get into all sorts of trouble. Wasperton is 2 miles north of the airfield, roughly in line with the north-south runway, so I would guess they were attempting a landing - maybe a mechanical fault, or a misjudgement of speed and it came down short of the airfield.

I would assume his body would have been recovered at the time, it's not in hostile territory or anything that would make recovery difficult.

HTH, but you probably already knew most of this.
Steve

Steve

Oh, in answer to the overseas question, there were 1,000 bomber raids in May and June 1942, involving 22 OTU's aircraft. Depending on how long he had been there, he may have taken part.

Steve

This is from "They shall grow not old" and you may already have this information

Robert Henry Harper from Port Credit Ontario, buried in Stratford on Avon.

My source states it was a training flight.