Dear Greg Harrison.

From Bomber Command Historical Society's Web Site I was informed that you may give some help in getting information from the ORB on Public Records Office.

My uncle Bjoern Naess, RNAF (Royal Norwegian Air Force), was in 76. sqdr. At Linton on Ouse in York from 22/10-42 to 17-18/1-43 when he was "missing in action" as a cpt. on a Halifax on a raid to Berlin on his 9th ops. I have written his diary from the war on PC and have talked to different people who knew him from the war. As I understand form 451 is the report from the cpt. after returning from ops. Is it possible to get copies of form 451 from his 1-8th ops from the operational records? If it is, what do you think would be the price to get this done? The dates is:

23/10-42 (Genua, copilot). 76. sqdr. Linton on Ouse?

15/11-42 (Genua, copilot). Linton on Ouse

22/11-42 (Stuttgart, cpt). Linton on Ouse

26/11-42 (Netherland, mines, cpt). Linton on Ouse

6/12-42 (Mannheim, cpt). Linton on Ouse

9/12-42 (Turin, cpt). Linton on Ouse

11/12-42 (Turin, cpt). Linton on Ouse

9/1-43 (Skagerak, mines, cpt). Linton on Ouse

Best regards

Paal Rustad

Hi Paal,

Many thanks for your email regarding your Uncle. I am interested to hear of his time on Halifax Bombers, and would love to hear more about his time with the RNAF. You may be interested to know that Linton-on-Ouse is where i spent my childhood, although i know live in Cardiff.

I would be delighted to obtain copies of the Squadron Operations Record Book (ORB) for the dates that your Uncle flew, the next time i am at the PRO. I may not be there for 2 or 3 weeks as i have a lot to do in my full time job (i work on the railway) at the moment, but i will copy them for you next time I am there. The cost is 25pence a sheet, and then whatever the cost of the postage is from me to you. I make no charge for my time, as i have to go to the PRO anyway in the course of my own research, so it is no problem to copy work for other people too.

I hope that this is agreeable with you Paal, and i will look forward to hearing from you soon,

With my very best wishes,

Greg

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Dear Greg,

I was very happy to get your email to day, and look very much forward to see my uncel's reports.

He was engaged in the war in Norway from the very start the 9th april 1940.

He was then at an airport near Trondheim. As the war went on the army had to retire to North Norway. When the war ended in Norway the 9. of june, some of the airmen left the country for England, and some to Finland as there were plans to start training for the RNAF there. When it was clear that Finland had sypathies for Germany the plans were cancelled and the men left, some for Sweden to get an opportunity to go to England/Canada and some went home - as my uncle.

The 5th february 1941 he left Norway again to get to the RNAF training school in Toronto, Canada. He went all the world around by train and plane and arrived at Calcutta in june. Some Norwegian airmen met there and reached San Fransisco by a Norwegian ship.

In Toronto he was immediately engaged as a teacher and stayed there for 6 months. He was then engaged in the Norwegian group in Transport Command (Ferry Command at that time) in Montreal. He made 4 trips across the Atlantic delivering planes in Scotland, two returns by ship and one by plane.

He was then engaged in 76 . sqdr. at Linton-On-Ouse as I told you. He and four other norwegians was the first from our country in Bomber Command, and was followed by many others in this sqdr. He made the ops's as described before (sorry about the dates 26/11-41 and 6/12-41, of course it is 1942). He describes the ops very briefly in his diary (except one that I have tracked by his navigator on this ops, he is still alive). I have been in contact with the last norwegian in this sqdr., Carl Larsen. Through his contacts in England he has got informations on all the norwegian losses in the sqdr. The loss on my uncles last ops. was 11.9%, and the raids was stopped to Berlin until new navigation equipment (H2S) was taken into use.

Only 3 Halifaxe's were lost in this ops. and through one of his contacts in British Intelligence who again has had contacts in Germany, there were 7 German fighters that left from the German coast and 2 of them attaced. They shot down one Halifax some 45 miles north-west of Juist island (on straight line between Berlin and York) at 21.55 (my uncle left Linton-On-Ouse at 17.55). The report says that "it is very possible" that this was my uncles Halifax. It seems that he must have had trouble over Germany before he was shot down, because the path home was very unusual - either they went home through Denmark or France. Do you think it is possible to find out the faith of the other two Halifaxes?

I have been especially interested in the psychology of these men as the % survival at that time for Halifax Bombers aircrew was as low as 17% for a "tour" of 30 ops. But it is little to get out of the survivers - only that it was NOT a great sacrifice to participate - they were happy for the possibility to revenge what had been done to them (when my uncle returned home from the war in Norway, his fathers butcher store was totally bombed to ruins and 13 people were killed in the cellar of the building).

I have talked to two of the men who were crew with my uncle on two of the ops. My uncles wife (married just before the war started) is still alive, but her memory is not as it was.

This was a little of the background for my inquiry. I look very much forward to hearing from you. The manuscript of his diary, pictures from his photo album (and some others I have got from his comrades) and my talks/letters to different people is now about 160 pages - it seems that it might be some more.

Please contact me if you want more informations.

Best regards

Paal.

Dear Greg.

I'm still waiting with great anticipation to hear from you. How is your research concerning my uncle's reports progressing?

Regards Paal

Dear Paal,

Many thanks for your email. Apologies for taking a while to get back to you - please understand that we do all our research in our spare time and our full time jobs often take up 12-14 hours a day of our time. Thus trips to the Public Record Office are not as frequent as we would like!! We were there yesterday and the day before, and that is the first time we have been able to get to the PRO for a few months.

I am afraid that I have bad news for you. The section of the 76 Squadron ORB that covers your Uncle's trips is missing. I do not know whether this is because it did not survive, or whether that particular section of it is missing for some reason. I tried to locate a mention of your Uncle in a couple of other documents, but to no avail I am afraid. As the document is not in the Public Record Office, I hold little hope of finding it anywhere else, but I will contact one person who I know is an authority on 76 Squadron and see if he can help. I will of course pass straight back to you anything that he is able to help with.

Many thanks, and best wishes as always,

Greg

Hi Paal,

Thanks for your email, good to hear from you.

>Dear Greg,

>Thank you very much for taking the inconvenience to search for my uncles reports.

No problem, I am happy to do this for you.

>I have been in contact with the author (Vera Henriksen) of the 3 volumes of the history of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, newly published (3. volume not yet published). There it was referred to copies of the complete collection of form 541 (the pilot's report) written by Gunnar Halle (as a colleague pilot of my uncle in the 76 Sqdr. - they arrived there together).

>Vera Henriksen had these copies and they were copied at PRO by Gunnar Halle himself as explained to me.

Interesting. They are definitely not at the PRO now, even if they were when he got them. I even got my friend (who was working at the PRO with me) to double check my work, just in case I had missed something, and he came back and told me that he could not find them either, and that they were definitely missing. If you have access to copies I would be interested to know where they came from, and more importantly, getting hold of copies myself!!

>I will contact Gary Duggleby to get his opinion in this matter.Again, thank you for trying. I will be happy to pay you any expences you have had in your efforts regarding this matter.

No expenses to pay. I had to go to the PRO anyway, and as I didn't get anything for you, there is nothing to pay!!

Best wishes, Greg