Royal Air Force

Had he been alive, this past weekend my father, Frank Knight, would have been joining his fellow veterans at the Cenotaph on Whitehall, London in the annual parade. He left his squadron as Flight Lieutenant, when it was disbanded – I’ve always suspected that he would have preferred to continue in the RAF after the war (he mentioned once that he had the opportunity) but his wife was going to have their first child and they chose to return to her parents in Argentina – where I was born a month before his official discharge.

He stayed for a while in Buenos Aires after his retirement (he worked as a salesman for a brewery, then for a steel company) and was at one time Chairman of the RAF Association there, but returned eventually to live in London, back to those of his surviving friends of that time – for though it was a tragic and awful time for humanity and the world – today we stop a little while in memory of all that die in wars and particularly this one – I think that bonds made then can never be undone. So honouring the memory o all veterans, and to Flt. Lt. Frank Knight, our Dad … with love,

Peter, John and Jeannie

About his Squadron:

No.172 Squadron was formed at Chivenor on 4 April 1942 from No.1417 (Leigh Light) Flight which had formed on 8 March to operate Wellingtons equipped with airborne searchlights on anti-submarine patrols. The first operational night patrol was flown on 3 June during which two U-boats were located and attacked. In August, seven aircraft were detached to Wick for patrols over the North Sea and were the basis of No.179 Squadron when it formed on 14 September. Patrols over the Western Approaches and Bay of Biscay led to many sightings and in March 1943 the Squadron’s Wellingtons were fitted with ASV Mark III radar to guide the aircraft into a position where their searchlights could be exposed to reveal a U-boat. This method soon brought results, U-665 being sunk on 20 March and the overall the squadron averaged one sighting for every four sorties.*

Between October 1943 and April 1944 detachments were based at Gibraltar and later, in the Azores. In September 1944, No.172 moved to northern Ireland and flew patrols over the Atlantic until disbanded on 4 June 1945.

Q

* Win one, lose one. From my father’s flight log: On the 8th. of October 1943, the German submarine U-340 was damaged and later scuttled (all crew but one rescued safely) but on the 7th. of January 1944 a surfaced sub blew a hole in one wing of my dad’s plane. – the sub may have been U-380 or U-952. The guy that would be my father, the Wellington’s crew, managed to get home and land safely. For better or for worse that’s why it’s me, Q, here and not somebody else (or no one at all).

I have to find a good theme: Some look great at first but the text starts drifting across columns, or picture don’t quite stay put – at least, where I thought I put them. Others … I tried one and couldn’t find my way back into this site management place: Q was locked out of Q’s Place!.

Pretty can? The Original:

Still working on this site. “Q’s Place” is a little low on an overcrowded priority list.  Mrs Q and I discuss what might go here. It’s definitely be the place to put personal things,  for friends and family as well as any that wander by and care for the kind of things we post.  writing of course, and home making as we haven’t been able to settle down yet; for oh so many reasons!

This morning though there were forty seven messages spam queue, blocked by the wonderful WordPress Akismet plugin.  Wonderful software,  that!. But the topmost was nasty – a few hundred lines of filth. So long that it wasn’t practical to search back for any genuine messages.

So if I haven’t acknowledged a genuine post: my apologies. Please post again. I know I should check in more often and look at comments held by Akismet before the list gets too long … of course it wouldn’t have done anything about the garrulous pornographer of that long, long comment.

Of course, one can just let the sewage through and then collect from Adsense? I doubt it, the good people at Google must be wise to that one, ages ago. Whatever,  it’s sad to see so many twerps and nitwits using up bandwidth like this. Nitwits and twerps is too mild for those sad sacks that make a living promoting the junk.

Until the next one, soon I hope. Pictures of where we used to live.

Where we are now – which is also where we hope to move out from.

And some grandchildren pictures, and great pictures of great grandchildren as well.

Meanwhile …

Please don’t open the can !

Q