Hello WWII Forum Members

Hello WWII Forum Members

My name is Michael. I only learned about this website a short while ago and 'signed-up' in order answer a posted message asking for information, which I had found while 'surfing'. I may be in for the duration.

I am an amateur 'airwar' historian with a long standing interest in 'Preston's Own' 78 Sqdn in World war II, a unit I have studied in some detail and depth. This interest evolved and matured during the course of an effort to 're-discover' an uncle who was KIA flying with this squadron on his 22nd Op. My initial interest in him came about after I inherited his photo album and 28 letters he had written home to his mother.

During the course of this effort I grew close to the squadron's then active 'Reunion Association' and sbsequently attended two of their reunions in York, England, in the early 90s, eventually corresponding with well over 380 former members collecting their stories, photo's, etc. I have the unit's ORBs on micro film and much other documentation which I have transcribed to a data base.

In 1994 I visited the crash site of my uncle's Halifax III, near Hank Holland, well aware some of the crew were still with the bomber. These remains were finally recovered thanks to the sustained efforts of Dutch people who took an interest in the situation.
See Salvage Halifax 1944 Foundation

On my first visit to Hank, a gentleman who was helping me, gave me files on five other Halifaxes that had crashed in the immediate area the same night: 24-25 May, 1944 - a raid on therailways yards in Aachen, Germany. This led me to recover the stories of all the 33 British aircraft lost that night, as well as the 8 German night-fighters. I learned a great deal about Bomber Command and the Luftwaffe night arm in this process.

In recovering the stories of the experiences of the night's crew survivor's, I discovered 12 of the 18 who had been helped to evade, ended up on a false escape line in Antwerp, run by the Abwehr. I have been 'running' with this subject ever since, and have since specialized in the history of the evasion lines of NW Europe.
See: Escape and Evasion - Michael Moores LeBlanc

If I can be of any help to readers of this post, with any of the subjects I have mentioned above, please feel free to contact me and I will do what I can.

Sincerely,
Michael Mores LeBlanc

 

Michael -- Welcome to a fine place. You will fit in quite nicely! Many thanks for sharing your research with us. I just explored your site and look forward to having a bit more time to thoroughly digest it.

Cheers!

 

Howdy and welcome to the forum. Glad to have you with us. Happy posting.

 

Welcome to ww2f MML.

 

You have to stay for the duration.

Just consider yourself conscripted.

Welcome.

 

Urqh is correct there young recruit. Just remember, it is better to be conscripted than to be convicted....

And welcome to the forums. Plenty to learn here.

 

Thank you for joining and sharing your information with us and welcome to this fine forum. If you are an aviation enthousiast, I'd love to share some thoughts with you .