Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
Add Information to Record of a Person who served during the Second World War on The Wartime Memories Project Website
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208997
F/Lt. Jack Baldwin DFC.
Royal Air Force 10 Squadron
from:Guiseley, West Yorkshire
Jack Baldwin's log book, with added commentary, became a small book 'Jack Baldwin's War', a copy of which was presented to the Allied Air Forces Memorial at Elvington in 2011.
Jack was a bomb-aimer, navigator in a crew piloted by Canadian Ivan Scott DFC, with Syd Butler DFC as Flight Engineer, Ivan Aram DFC as, I think, radio operator and a small guy nicknamed Titch as rear gunner.
One of Jack's best stories concerned Titch and a device that triggered an alarm when enemy aircraft approached from the rear. The alarm sent the skipper into immediate and dramatic evasive action. Having been hurled about several times in a short time with no sign of enemy aircraft around, Scotty sent Jack back to see if anything was amiss. Turned out that Titch was so short, he had a box to stand on to see out , but every time he stood on it, the alarm went off!
On another occasion, just off the south coast, the Halifax became tough to handle, yawing away. Scotty asked Jack to look out and check the port inner engine. It was not there! 'It was there when you left' commented their mechanic when they eventually, some days later, returned to Melbourne.