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HMS Vulture
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Those known to have sailed in HMS Vulture during the Second World War 1939-1945. - Adlam Bill. PO
- Anderson Lawrence Hogg. AM.
- Badger Reg. AM/O 1st class.
- Belcher Derick Gibson. AirArt4. (d.12th Oct 1947)
- Bradbury Keith Edwin.
- Farrer DSC. Mathew Cameron. A/Lt. (d.27th Aug 1945)
- Jones Joseph Edgar. Sub-Lt. (d.10th March 1945)
- Legge Geoffrey. Lt. Commander (d.Nov 1940)
- Letts William.
- Lewis John Aaron.
- Lodge Denis. AFO.
- Oatley Stephenson Joslin Hutchings. Mne.
- Poe John Charles Leonard. PO.
The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please
Add a Name to this List
Records of HMS Vulture from other sources.
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Want to know more about HMS Vulture? There are:0 items tagged HMS Vulture available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Lt. Commander Geoffrey Legge Fleet Air Arm (d.Nov 1940) I am the younger son of Lt. Commander Geoffrey Legge RNVR who in fact owned the 50 acre site of St Merryn Aerodrome, St Merryn, Cornwall, before the war through his business together with William Rhodes Moorhouse. At the time he owned property at Harlyn Bay (which is still in the family) and kept various aircraft there including his Percival Q6 reg: G-AFFE, Whitney Straight etc which he kept in the black hanger there (which still stands today). This hangar is also where Nick Grace
rebuilt his Spitfire Mk 9 which Carolyn flies today. The Admiralty
requisitioned St Merryn airfield to become HMS Vulture II in 1940 together with the Q6. Regrettably my father was killed whilst in the Fleet Air Arm, flying a Proctor from Lee on Solent down to his old base, St Merryn. Due to bad weather, this happened somewhere near Exeter in November 1940. He is buried in the graveyard at St Merryn. As a boy I grew up at Harlyn Bay and used to cycle up to the airfield, fascinated by the aircraft, and Mother of course, knew a number of the servicemen at Camp as we called it, and we made a lot of friends there.
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Mne. Stephenson Joslin Hutchings "Steve" Oatley HMS Vulture My grandfather, Steve Oatley was a greengrocer in Coulsden serving in the 58th Surrey (Purley) Battalion, Home Guard before joining the Royal Marines in April 1942. He served on HMS Gosling, HMS Vulture and HMS St Mathew before being released in January 1946.
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AirArt4. Derick Gibson Belcher HMS Vulture (d.12th Oct 1947) I came across the entry for Derick Belcher whilst researching casualties from Wiltshire for the Wiltshire OPC Project.
For a while I could not understand why a young lad from Wiltshire serving in the Navy would be buried in Cornwall 2 years after hostilities ended. It was only when I understood that HMS Vulture was in fact a Royal Naval Air Station that it made sense.
It would be lovely to know if the serviceman's family were given the opportunity to have their son buried nearer to home and that the parents decided to have him buried in a pretty village churchyard rather than a large municipal town cemetery. The serviceman was aged 23 and has a CWGC headstone.
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AFO. Denis Lodge 794 Squadron Denis Lodge served at H.M.S. Vulture and with 749 Squadron RNAS. I don’t know much about my father’s service record, I found this ID card among my mother’s effects.
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A/Lt. Mathew Cameron Farrer DSC. No. 709 Naval Air Squadron, Fleet Air Arm (d.27th Aug 1945) Mathew Farrer is a distant cousin of mine whom I discovered whilst researching my ancestry. His death at HMS Vulture training airfield is recorded on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site, and he is remembered at the New Zealand Naval Memorial in Devonport, Auckland.
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Sub-Lt. Joseph Edgar Jones HMS Vulture Fleet Air Arm (d.10th March 1945)   Joseph Jones, Eddie, as he was known, worked in Bradford as a trainee electrician (a reserved occupation). He came over to work in Bradford because his Aunt and Uncle had a business there and lived in Ilkley.
He and my mother, Jean Thornton started courting. Originally Jean and Eddie were invited along on a double date with friends but got on well and carried on seeing each other.
Eddie was always very respectful of Jean and well liked by her family.
Jean was 4 years younger than he was and they met when Jean was quite young (perhaps 15 or 16). Eddie was almost 23 when he died (on the 10th March 1945) and Jean 19. Their birthdays were very close on the 12th and 13th March.
Eddie joined the Royal Air Force and trained in Winnepeg, Canada in 1943. In 1945 he transferred to the Fleet Air Arm and was killed on a Naval training flight in Cornwall.
Eddie and Jean had planned to get engaged but, on the day they had planned to buy the ring, the shops were shut by the time they got to them. In those days Bradford's city centre shops had a half day closing on a Saturday. Somehow the couple had an misunderstanding and Eddie thought that Jean had not wanted to get engaged. He then went off to his training and somehow the couple never made up before he died.
Jean found out later (from his sister) that he had spent the money for the ring getting blind drunk in Dublin before going to his posting. His family had not known why, he was not normally a drinker, or where the money had come from.
The day Eddie died, 10th of March 1945, Jean mysteriously knew that it had happened and said that it felt like her world had fallen apart. She had just assumed that he would come back and they would make up.
Jean recently passed away but had always kept Eddie's picture and a beautiful satin nightgown he had given her. We spoke about him in the days before she died and his picture was there by her bed.
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AM. Lawrence Hogg Anderson HMS Nuthatch I'm sorry the only things I know is my father, Lawrence Anderson, passed 40 years ago and I have just found these documents its a certificate of service in the Royal Navy the writing is hard to read so the names of the ships may not be right. If anyone remembers him from photos or stories he would be about 97 years old now.
- Gosling, Air Mechanic 2, 5 Oct 1943 - 17 Dec 1943
- Unknown, 18 Dec 43- 15 Jan 44
- Vulture, 16 Jan 44 - 21 Sept 44
- Daedalus, 22 Sept 44 - 10 Oct 44
- Kestach, (?) 2 Oct 44 - 14 Oct 44
- Daedalus, 15 Oct 44 - 4 Nov 44
- Nuthatch 26 Sept 45 - 7 Mar 46
- Nuthatch 8 Mar 46 - 2 Oct 46
He was released after the 2nd Oct 1946. My dad was Scottish and was an apprentice air mechanic when he joined the Navy. He lived in Roslea, Newstead, Melrose prior to enlisting. Wish I knew more
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PO. John Charles Leonard Poe 774 Squadron Fleet Air Arm      At the outbreak of war in 1939 my father John Poe was a milling machinist and too young for active service. He was always proud to state that he had been in an army uniform, an R.A.F. uniform and a naval uniform. This is correct as in the early part of the war he joined the home guard and wore an army uniform. In August 1941 when he was 17 he enlisted with the R.A.F. The story he told me was that he was too young but put his age up a year and was enlisted on 5th August 1941 and this is the enlistment date shown on his certificate of discharge from the R.A.F. According to Dad's story his Mother informed the authorities that he was too young and he was discharged on 6th August 1941. This story is confirmed by the note on his naval certificate but is not noted on his R.A.F. certificate of service. His certificate of service with the navy notes that he served one day in the R.A.F. in August 1941 but was enlisted again in the R.A.F from 9th February 1942 to 5th June 1942. The discharge date is confirmed by his R.A.F. certificate. He was discharged because he was "not likely to become an efficient airman pilot". Dad told me that he failed his aircraft recognition exams because he was too involved with some local girls! His 119 days in the R.A.F. was recognised as war service on his naval discharge certificate. An item of interest is that both his certificates of service have an incorrect birth date of 1923 when he was actually born in 1924.
Not to be denied his wish to fly John commenced service in the Royal Navy on 8th September 1942 as a naval airman. His initial posting was to HMS Royal Arthur, Skegness, where he underwent his initial training as a telegraphist which was completed on 16th October 1942 when he was transferred to St Vincent, Gosport, where he undertook further training. His flying career commenced when he was transferred to HMS Kestrel, Worthy Down, on 12th December and the first entry in his log was 21st January 1943 in which he notes "flying not what I expected". His log shows flying hours at Worthy Down up to 16th July 1943. He completed 85.00 hours W/T Training. Whilst at Worthy Down he was promoted to A/L Airman on 22nd March 1943. According to his log he commenced air gunnery training with 774 squadron at St Merryn on 6th August 1943 but was not transferred to Vulture on his service record until 11th September 1943. I have his original Air Gunners Flying Log Book. Between 9th and 12th of August 1943 his pilot was S/Lt Reid. There are two further entries where the pilot was S/Lt Reed. On 17th September 1943 he was transferred to HMS Nightjar, 766 Squadron where he commenced flying 20th September 1943. I think this was still training in anti-submarine bombing and it was here that he became a crew member for S/Lt Gouldesbury. S/Lt Gouldesbury was his pilot until 1st May 1945 when John was transferred to 1702 Squadron at Lee-on Solent. On 3rd of October 1943 whilst on an exercise their plane crashed at Millom, Cumbria. This was the first of three major incidents that John was involved in during the war. He told me that after the crash and all the crew had evacuated the aircraft he wanted to go back to the aircraft to retrieve his lucky mascot but he was restrained by another crew member. As he was being restrained the plane burst into flames and the plane was completely destroyed. The log records the crash in much less dramatic fashion.
On 4th November 1943 he was transferred to 836 Squadron where he was a member of S/Lt Gouldsbury's crew until 30th April 1945 when he was transferred to 1702 Squadron (HMS Daedalus, Lee on Solent). S/Lt Gouldsbury does not appear to have gone with him. From his Flying log 836 Squadron flew between HMS Shrike (Maydown, N.I.), HMS Landrail (Machrihanish, Campbelltown, Scotland) and Merchant Aircraft Carriers (MAC). He spoke of travelling on the MAC's across the Atlantic to Canada and Moncton in Canada is mentioned in his log. They also landed at Ronaldsway on the Isle of Man and seemed to return to Dartmouth on a regular basis. Without knowing the movements of the Empire Macrae I don't think I have enough information to work out exactly what happened during the eighteen months of operations with 836 Squadron. One entry is worthy of note. On 9th of April 1944 they crashed into the sea 4.5 miles from Arran, Scotland. They were rescued and returned to Maydown the following day. John was admitted to the goldfish club as he escaped death using his emergency dinghy. Presumably the other members of the crew also qualified and were admitted. He did tell me there was one other major incident when landing on a MAC. There was some problem and they nearly went over the edge of the carrier. Dad said if they had gone over it would have been unlikely that they would have survived. This does not seem to have been documented but then perhaps it was not an uncommon event. He did not like flying and did not fly after his discharge until he migrated to Australia and had to catch commercial flights for holidays etc. He was always nervous and said "Only birds and fools fly, and most birds don't fly at night" he usually followed this up with "I have escaped death in aeroplanes three times, I doubt if I would be lucky enough to survive a fourth time". On 1st May 1945 at the end of the war in Europe John was transferred to 1702 Squadron at Lee on Solent and flew in Sea Otters. He told me that he was transferred to Sea Otters and was to travel to the far east to assist in the war against Japan but by the time they reached Greece the war had ended.
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Keith Edwin Bradbury HMS Vulture Keith Bradbury served on HMS Vulture from 1943 to 1945.
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PO Bill Adlam HMS Vulture Petty Officer Bill Adlam was stationed at HMS Vulture from 1939 to 1941.
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John Aaron Lewis HMS Vulture My father served at HMS Vulture at St Merryn during the war as an armourer.
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AM/O 1st class. Reg "Badger" Badger HMS Vulture I worked mainly on dispersals as an Armourer doing re arms etc. Unfortunately my recall is rather bad now. I think I was there late 1943 early 1944. We worked on Corsairs Wildcats and Seafires.
I have some photos taken on Dispersal of all the ground crew and also the Armourers on there own on the Corsair.
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William Letts HMS Vulture I am a writer trying to find out about HMS Vulture during the years 1942-52 for a book I am writing. The person in question is now deceased, Bill Letts, who was based there during these years. I thought Vulture was a ship but find it is a naval airbase. Does this mean he couldn't have sailed on a ship called this? (I know there was an SS Vulture that sailed, but that was before these dates and he was on HMS not SS.) If anyone can help me understand a bit more about this, I would be most grateful. Also, does anyone know of a naval school at nearby Newquay for the children of naval personnel during this time and later? Any help would be most welcome.
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