http://www.lowestoftaviationsociety.org.uk/

Lowestoft Aviation Society, Lowestoft (2026)

04/02/2022

An air-to-air view of two Lancasters in formation taken from the rear turret of a third. Both have faired over front turrets and no mid upper turrets. They are over Lowestoft. White prefabs on the Gunton estate and Eastern Coach Works visible. On the reverse 'Formation Flying 15 Sqdn Lanc Mk I Special 46/47 Taken from Rear Turret'.
(Photo under Creative Commons Attribution - non-Commercial 4.0, colourisation by Russell Walker)

18/11/2021

The last bombs of 1941 in Lowestoft whistled out of the blacked-out skies at 1845 hours on 18 November, 80 years ago today. With much of the Luftwaffe's bombers involved in the pitched battles in Russia, the Germans nevertheless seemed to always find enough aircraft to keep the sirens going in East Suffolk and make life miserable for the servicemen and civilians remaining in Britain's most easterly town.

Three 500 kg (1,110 lb) bombs were released from a lone raider going SW. The first bomb scored a direct hit on Nos 14-16 Denmark Road, only a few yards from where a massive crater had been blasted in the road by a bomb seven months earlier. Three houses disappeared into another large crater and the Imperial Hotel was also partly demolished. Many windows in the vicinity of Suffolk Plain were shattered by the blast, including 30 plate-glass shop windows. The Central Railway Station received slight damage in this its last near-miss of the war.

A second bomb exploded in the water of the Inner Harbour near South Quay. The MV "Empire Sound" (350 tons) was holed by bomb shrapnel in several places and blasted from her moorings but remained afloat.

The final bomb landed in a garden at the rear of 56, Waveney Drive and almost unbelievably had an outcome which almost mirrored the bomb which hit London Road South a month earlier. An Anderson shelter which stood buckled and wrecked on the rim of the crater contained three people; all three survived only one was slightly injured!

Wartime newspapers played their part in keeping up public morale, but I strongly suspect the writer of one picture caption had their tongue planted firmly in their cheek when they wrote about the Denmark Road incident "Neighbours in an adjoining house did not know there had been a raid as their windows had been felted up..."

13/11/2021

Signs of things to come

27/02/2021

80 years ago today on 27 Feb 1941 Lowestoft was again under the cosh of the German Luftwaffe with Ju 88s, Do 17zs and He 111s making widespread attacks on targets of opportunity in East Suffolk. Observer Sid Bailey recorded three long air raid 'alerts' sounding during which time there were enemy aircraft almost continuously droning in the vicinity but only three attacks.
In the first, at 11.05 am a Dornier 17Z flying south down the coast dropped 5 HE bombs in the sea just off the North Pier Extension. No damage, no casualties - this time. At 12.50 pm however, with low cloud and heavy rain falling a fast moving raider heading seawards unseen in the murk released two heavy (250 kg or 500 kg) HE bombs. One landed on the forecourt of a Grocer's shop in Beaconsfield Road. The shop and an adjoining house were destroyed and the six nearest houses extensively damaged. The second bomb hit 80, Lorne Park Road, demolishing it and three other houses and badly damaging 10 others.
The final attack came at 4.02 pm and as previous, was a low-flying aircraft carrying two heavy HE bombs. The bomb which hit 474, London Road South destroyed or partly demolished six houses and caused extensive damage to 33 more. The final bomb hit 42, Morton Road, leaving 8 houses demolished, seven badly damaged and 333 others with "minor damage", net stores also being affected. Telephone lines were brought down, and not for the first time in WW 2,the A12 road was blocked by wreckage from bombed properties in Lowestoft. Of the six people killed that day, one was a four year-old child and another a 76 year-old man, proof if ever needed, German bombs did not discriminate in the ages of their victims. Their names were added to a sad list which recorded 192 civilians and 83 service personnel killed by enemy action in this part of East Suffolk.
The details of the civilian dead are also recorded in documents at the former Lowestoft Record Office (now referred to by Suffolk Archives as "The Lowestoft Search-room space") and now sadly earmarked for delivery to "The Hold" in Ipswich. Here, people from this area will either have to make a 90 mile round trip to see them or face the expense of hiring a researcher to look them up. This we are told by Suffolk County Council, is a "transformed, improved service"
Pics courtesy the late Ford Jenkins ("Port War") and ECN/Archant archives

11/02/2021

I know this is not "Lost trails" but am trying to trace a Mr Bob Ward, who is related to the late Sgt John E Hill, killed in a wartime RAF bomber crash at Cawston, Norfolk in 1941. Mr Ward was known to be living in the Lowestoft area in 2019. We have some information which may interest him. Please post here or PM me for details, thanks, BC

10/02/2021

SPITFIRES!

06/02/2021

Superb work in enhancing and colourising old pictures by Russell Walker has meant that cobwebs like myself now have the opportunity to give people a new perspective on some very well-known images. In the early hours of 16 April 1915, the German Zeppelin L5, which had already visited Reydon, Southwold, Halesworth and Henham, made a bombing run across Lowestoft dropping HE and incendiary bombs. The very first air-dropped missiles to hit the town fell in Denmark Road and Kimberley Road Sadly, Katwijk Way has now replaced the spot where the first bomb fell, but we are still hopeful a plaque or marker of some description can be erected there.
Details of the damage to property are among the archives still languishing in the supposedly unfit-for purpose strongrooms at Lowestoft Record Office, awaiting decant to the "Hole" in Ipswich, where local people will either have to make a 90 mile round trip to see them, or face the expense of hiring a researcher to obtain the details for them. This we are told is the "transformed" Suffolk Record Office service....

29/12/2020

Among the large quantity of original archives still languishing in allegedly unfit for purpose conditions in the strongrooms at Lowestoft Record Office and off limits to the public since February are the wartime service records of the Lowestoft lifeboats. Today marks the 80th anniversary of a wartime mystery which I have yet to unravel.

At 12.30 pm on Sunday 29 December 1940, the Lowestoft lifeboat and Dunkirk veteran "Michael Stephens" was launched following a report from the Coastguards that a British aircraft had come down in the sea 3 miles ENE of Lowestoft.

The British fighter ace Sqn Ldr R R S Tuck flying a Hurricane IIA from Coltishall reported a combat at about this time in the Lowestoft area and claimed a Do 17 destroyed. His biography "Fly for your Life" states the Dornier crashed in the sea after Tuck and his fellow 257 Sqn pilot Carl Capon attacked it. However, other published accounts state the Dornier was severely damaged in the attacks and was felt "unlikely to have made it back to base" being subsequently claimed as destroyed. Playing God with wartime aircraft claims and losses is always a dangerous business, and in this instance, all we can say with any certainty is that no Dornier 17s were recorded as having been lost on that date in Luftwaffe loss-returns and the only one which might have been that in Tuck's gunsight was a Do 17 from unit 3/KG.2 which force-landed at Calais/Marck with severe damage and two crew members wounded.

The "Michael Stephens" reached the reported area of the crash indicated by the Coastguard and carried out a three hour search. No wreckage or oil/fuel slicks were seen, but one of the crew did briefly spot a blue mitten floating in the water which sank from view before it could be recovered. The lifeboat crew were awarded £6-5s-6d and the Record of Service board listed yet another "No service" entry.

So just what was the "British aircraft" which crashed in the sea that day? Neither Bomber, Coastal or Fighter Command reported any missing aircraft in the sea that date. The RAF Casualty Packs now at TNA make no references to any dead or missing RAF personnel who may have been lost at sea in an aircraft crash that date and a detailed search has revealed all of the aircraft crashes/incidents involving casualties on 29 December 1940 occurred on land.

Every now and then my researches throw up mysteries which won't go away. The mystery of the blue mitten is one such story.

Best wishes to all for 2021

04/12/2020

80 years ago today, at 12.56 pm on Wednesday 4 Dec 1940, a hurried telephone call from the local Observer Corps was the only warning Police received before a twin engined Ju 88 bomber crossed the coast at Pakefield heading NW at 3,000 feet and unloaded its bombs.
From the accompanying picture, courtesy Russell Walker, one can clearly establish that a coastal battery was in residence and the assumption is that the attack was directed at this. Four HE bombs, which Police estimated to have been 500 kg size (1,110 lbs) fell on the holiday camp site. A car was badly damaged, two huts were destroyed and two others badly damaged. A large wood/glass recreation building used by the Royal Artillery servicemen was blasted into pieces by one of the bombs, which left 12 feet deep craters.
The only casualty of the raid, and the last fatality of 1940 in the Lowestoft area occurred here. 41 year-old Lt Maurice Latter, from No.326 Coastal Battery had apparently been running to warn his colleagues of the danger when the bombs fell. Incredibly, despite the fact some 50 panes of glass were shattered by bomb blast, there were no other casualties. One of the bombs fell on the road to the camp leaving a gaping crater 38 feet wide and 16 feet deep.
Over the weeks and months that followed local residents, both civilian and military, came to realise that "hit-and-run" attacks of this type could occur at any time, and that little and sometimes no warning would be possible.

29/11/2020

The Day Italians Bombed Lowestoft
For more than 70 years a wartime raid which wrecked part of a cannery plant in Lowestoft and killed three people was thought to have been the work of the German Luftwaffe. However, the bombs which hit the CWS (Co-op) cannery factory in Waveney Drive, Lowestoft on 29 November 1940, were in fact of Italian origin.
It was only in the 90s that I made the connection with the Italian Air Force, the Regia Aeronautica, through comparing the records of the Corpo Aero Italiano - the group assigned to attack Britain from bases in Nazi-occupied Belgium in 1940 - and records of bombing raids in Britain from UK archives.
This is another one of those obscure but possibly unique events in Lowestoft's wartime history. Ten Italian Fiat BR.20 bombers took off from Melsbroeck in Belgium on 29 November 1940 intending to carry out night attacks on Great Yarmouth, Ipswich and Lowestoft. There were no bombs in Yarmouth or Ipswich that night, but at 6.39 pm, while air-raid measure "purple" was still in place and before any alert had been sounded, an aircraft flying at 5,000 feet dropped six bombs on and near the Co-op Society's No.1 Canning Factory in Waveney Drive. Two of the bombs landed on a concrete floor but the most serious damage and casualties came from a bomb which hit an upright girder in the roof, sending a deadly hail of shrapnel into the plant below which left three people fatally injured and seriously injured several more. There was extensive damage to buildings, machinery and preserved food stored there. Eight houses in Waveney Drive were also slightly damaged. One bomb from the same aircraft cratered a field at Mutford, causing minor damage.
ARP and Police records make reference to the blast properties of the bombs dropped that night, which were an unusual 100 kg size - a size never used by the Luftwaffe. Several photographs of the damage are in Lowestoft photographer the late Ford Jenkins' book "Port War"
Local legend has it that the casualties could have been much worse had more people been present working overtime, but there was none that day and only 14 members of staff were on site when the bombs fell.
My correspondence with Italian historian Luca Guglielmetti, the author of a book on the Corpo Aero Italiano, proved invaluable when his information confirmed Lowestoft was bombed by one of the aircraft from unit 13 Stormo's 3 Squadriglia.
The names of the staff who died are recorded on the CWS memorial board.
The raid however, ended badly for the Italians. One of the Fiat BR.20 bombers involved crashed into farm buildings while coming in to land at its Belgian base and all six crew were killed. Having examined all the evidence it does seem highly likely that the victims of the raid at the CWS in Lowestoft that night were the only casualties of Mussolini's Air Force in Suffolk, and possibly even in the UK.
By a cruel irony, Italian prisoners of war were employed by the company packing trays in 1943
The details of all the local civilian air raid casualties are contained in archives at Lowestoft Record Office, now earmarked for removal to "The Hold" in Ipswich. Suffolk County Council are still going ahead with the plan to remove our unique local archives, despite the public and a host of heritage groups, authors, historians and campaigners sending them a very clear message that they do not want them moved.

30/09/2020

Recording the details of wartime raids and remembering those who lost their lives are both an integral part of this sort of research undertaken by myself and others At 1125 am on Sunday 29th Sept 1940 a high-flying Dornier Do 17Z released 6 x 50 kg HE bombs aimed at the harbour and docks of Lowestoft. One hit without exploding on the North Pier Extension, 3 went into the water and one scored a direct hit on a Herring Market office used by the Navy. Here, four sailors, 3 from HMS Minos and one from Europa, and four civilian Admiralty employees were killed. The last bomb landed in Battery Green Road close to the Bethel and Marconi House, bursting a water main and leaving scars in the brickwork of buildings which remain to this day. It was a particularly poignant day for Andy Pearce whose great grandfather Bert Thacker had been one of the victims. A religious man he would not normally work on the Sabbath, but he chose duty to King and country and sadly, it cost him his life that day. The events of that day 80 years ago came to a tragic end when the unexploded bomb - in reality a delayed-action time bomb - detonated an hour later while a group of soldiers from the Lancs Fusiliers were standing over it, killing four of them. I took a detour on my way home to pay my respects and photograph the graves of the two sailors buried here. Twelve people died that day - hence the twelve poppies from Poppies by the Sea. CV19 has scuppered most of our commemorative events for this year, but our own modest low-key event has ensured that those who died are not forgotten. Lest we forget.

Lowestoft Aviation Society

04/02/2022

18/11/2021

13/11/2021

27/02/2021

11/02/2021

10/02/2021

06/02/2021

29/12/2020

04/12/2020

29/11/2020

30/09/2020

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