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National Bomber Command Day - 28th July 2023



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It was fair weather as Jacqui and I attended the above event at the International Bomber Command Centre, Lincoln on Friday 28 July. Although it was a personal pilgrimage to honour my father who was killed on operations with 620 Squadron in 1943, I also laid a wreath on behalf of ROCA. No other ROCA or ex-ROC personnel were visible or made contact, but it was a useful chance to meet and chat to the new RAFBF Chairman, Richard Daniel, former MD of Raytheon, a big supporter of the RAFBF, and his wife. I also spoke to Neil Sturtridge who was there with a team from the RAFBF. Neil said the Reunion is in Air Commodore Simon Harper's (the Director of Grants, Services & Programmes) diary. He also said that he is hoping to bring a small team with him to Southport as the RAFBF intend to have an article in the their Spring Newsletter on the ROC with a focus on the Funds response to the needs of former members. 
 
There were a number of Senior RAF officers present and I endeavoured to appraise them of the Observer Corps/Royal Observer Corps role. Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the International Bomber Command Centre who I have met several times in his role as President of the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust. (He was AOC Strike Command and attended the Royal Review of the ROC in 1991). Sir Michael made comment on Bomber Commands contribution to the Battle of Britain and the winning of the war quoting Albert Speer, Hitler’s Industry Minister, on the bombing campaign “No one has yet seen that this was the greatest lost battle on the German side.”  One interesting conversation was with Coby a Dutch woman who came to recognise the role of the RAF in Operation Manna (dropping food to starving people in the Netherlands after the Nazis retreated), an Operation now commemorated with a sculpture at the entrance to the Centre
 
Another new tribute are the sculptures of the fifty three aircrew lost from 617 (Dambuster) Squadron on the Rhur Dams, a raid that took place eighty years ago.
 
An interesting day that I would have liked to share with other ROCA Members
 
Terry Giles
National Vice President


Click here to see ROCA involvement at the IBCC in 2022

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