This is to introduce my book ‘Just Another Forgotten Hero’. I have spent nearly a year as one of a small group of strangers researching the fascinating story of one ordinary man’s extraordinary life, from his humble beginnings in rural North Wales to his wartime adventures in the RAF and his eventual death as a homeless down and out.
He had been the rear gunner in a Lancaster bomber which was shot down on its way back to England after a raid on the Rhur industrial complexes. The other six members of his crew all died. He managed with the help of local patriots to return to Britain via France, Spain and Gibraltar, a risky journey that took him two months to complete. But life was not kind to our hero and he died alone and homeless estranged from his family, which is sadly not that unusual for ex-servicemen. Through painstaking research his family tree was built and his story was slowly uncovered. Did we then manage to find any of his survivng offspring who had known nothing of his later life to pass all this information on to?
Sorry, but you will need to buy the book to find that out!
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Preamble
Introduction
The following is an entirely true tale, and tells the story of a search for living descendants of an ex-RAF Air Gunner who was shot down over Belgium during World War 2. The time-line of the search is accurate, and told from my point of view as one of those concerned in that quest.
Many aspects of the fascinating and involving story of this airman’s life and experiences were uncovered during the research and these are included in this tale. How could they not be? While many of these are unique and specific to this one man, many other forgotten heroes shared the same, or very similar, events. We must remember them all, for whether they came back whole, wounded or paid the ultimate price, certainly none remained unmarked. These tales are not recounted in the piecemeal haphazard way in which they were discovered, but more in relation to their own time line simply to make those parts of his story less disjointed and more readable.
The only minor departure from the truth, as I know it, is that the names of all persons still alive at the time of writing have not been given in full in order to respect the wish for privacy expressed by some of their number.
Chapter 1
A Sad and Lonely Place
In an unmarked grave in Everton Cemetery there lies buried a long forgotten tale of love and loss, daring and despair, triumph and tragedy. Only now, more than 35 years after he was laid to rest here, can I tell you this man’s fascinating story. So whose mortal remains were placed there on the third of January 1985, alone and unremarked with neither friend nor relative to mourn his passing? A war hero, a father, a husband, someone’s son. An incredibly lucky and yet a desperately unfortunate soul. A typically unique individual much like any of the rest of us.
How and why did I get to know his story? Well, that is a story in itself, and it began on an ordinary, boring sort of a day.
Other extracts will be published on the posts pages, and will be available to all my readers. I do expect you all to respect the copyright rules. Other, longer sections of the book will only be in password protected areas. If you have a good reason to view those you can request permission here.