Blighty Thank God

03/06/2024

80 years ago, on June 6, 1944, my father, Flt Sgt Ron Chapman, was 5,000+km from the Normandy D-Day landings. Stationed in Egypt, he was probably ‘cheesed off’.

He had been overseas two and a half years, with no end in sight.

His diary for 1943, on which my ‘Blighty Thank God’ podcast series is based, reflects how being away from home for so long was hard.

One of the things getting to him and his colleagues was that while they were enduring diseases and unbearable heat - troops from all over the world were arriving in the UK as part of the invasion build up.

In the diary he reports one resentful colleague felt ‘foreigners’ were enjoying themselves in the UK while British troops were fighting overseas.

Since leaving the UK, he had almost been killed when his fuel-starved plane crashed, he witnessed a good friend die when his plane plunged into the ground - and there were other colleagues who died horrible deaths. All detailed in the podcast.

When the D-Day invasion began it was a sign that going home to Blighty might become a reality.

15/03/2024

One ‘Blighty Thank God’ episode highlights the Bristol Blenheim V plane - or as pilots dubbed it - the ‘Grisly Bisley’.

Through research into my late father’s (Flt/Sgt. Ron Chapman of St. Albans, UK) 1943 war diary I learned how it earned its macabre reputation. I discovered at least 24 Bisley crashes in the Middle East 1942-44, most during 1943.

Even more damning was that the plane’s fatal flaws were well known by senior RAF leaders. One Wing Commander described the Bisley as “an appalling aircraft”. It “barely flew” because of its extra weight, but no additional power.

Sadly, I also discovered names of men who paid with their lives for its failings.

Two crew and a passenger in BA101 perished February, 1943 after port engine failure, causing a forced landing near Sharjah. The plane flipped over.

Pilot Flt/Sgt Anthony Williams, 29, of Derby (married) and navigator Flt/Sgt William Hubbard, 22, of Essex are buried at the Alamein Memorial in Egypt. First Lt. the Hon. Alan Balzano Hailey, 42, of London is commemorated at Brookwood Memorial in the UK.

In May, 1943 21-year-old Flt/Sgt William Symons of Hove, Sussex burned to death, trapped in BA 603 after its engine failed as it landed at RAF Masirah, Oman.

Then in July, 1943 the crew of BA 500 - pilot Flt/Sgt Don Nash, 22, of Basingstoke; navigator Flt/Sgt George Keir, 33, of Montrose; and wireless operator Flt/Sgt Montrose Sublet, 28, of Maylands, W. Australia - were killed when their plane grounded at RAF Masirah, bursting into flames.

The ‘Blighty Thank God’ podcast tells stories about WW2 and aviation and is available on Apple, Spotify and other podcast platforms.

PICTURE: Flt/Sgt Ron Chapman in the weight-adding gun turret of another crippled Bisley that force landed off Saudi Arabia.

05/03/2024

Visit the website https://j-aircraft.com/captured/capturedby/hurricane/captured_hurricane.htm to see pictures of British Hawker Hurricane Mark IIb fighter - BE208.
Two show it in RAF markings, crashed in Singapore Feb., 1942. The 3rd is with it decked in Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF) livery, dated 1943.
Manufactured in either Hawker’s Langley or Brooklands factory, the website outlines how the Hurricane ended up in Japanese hands after Singapore’s fall. To my surprise my father - Flt Sgt. Ron Chapman - played a 6,000km part in its long journey from the UK to Asia.
He, and the plane, arrived in West Africa Nov-Dec, 1941. As a ferry pilot, he tested the re-assembled Hurricane and then flew it in a series of ‘hops’ over dense African jungle, across searing desert and then along the lush Nile Delta to Cairo, Egypt arriving Dec 20, 1941.
My 12-part podcast ‘Blighty Thank God’, available on Apple and Spotify, tells stories I found and researched in his lost war diary.
Flt Sgt Chapman flew the single-seater plane in support of the North Africa campaign. But planes were also desperately needed to defend Singapore.
After delivery to Cairo the plane, and 232 Squadron, were diverted to Indonesia arriving Feb,1942.
Days after becoming 232 Sq/Ldr ‘Rickey’ Brooker, was shot down in BE208 as he attacked Japanese bombers. He force landed in a ditch. The Hurricane was captured, repaired, flown and tested by the IJAAF.
The IJAAF pilot would have found the Hurricane dived faster and had better pilot protection than the Japanese Zero; but the Zero could out climb, out turn and out run the Hurricane - not a good combination.

26/02/2024

Meeting VIPs during WW2.

17/02/2024

This wedding photograph of my late parents - Ron and Monica Chapman - at St. Stephen’s Church, St. Albans, October 1946, was familiar to me growing up.

After researching my father’s WW2 diary, discovered after both had died, it threw up a number of questions.

My father wears his RAF uniform. But where did my mother get her wedding dress?

In his diary my father mentions buying silk a number of times while stationed in the Middle East. In his photo album he’s pictured outside a silk shop in Manama, Bahrein. He also talks about colleagues doing the same.

Could he have acquired enough silk for his future wife’s big day dress?

Clothing coupons and rationing were in place during the war and continued until well after their marriage.

As an RAF pilot my father had access to parachutes. Once used parachutes were discarded. Servicemen could take them home.

Just one would provide a huge amount of clothing fabric. After the war, up and down the country many brides made their wedding dresses from parachutes.

Is that where my mother’s dress came from?

Newspapers published stories about dedicated young women determined not to let any fabric go to waste, becoming symbols of resourcefulness and creativity.

Far from being extravagant, wearing such a wedding dress was seen as honouring the service of their men.

07/02/2024

My WW1 veteran grandfather John “Jack’ Chapman very likely worked on a highly secret WW2 RAF project being developed close to his home by De Havilland - the ‘wooden wonder’ Mosquito aircraft.

The project was being developed at Salisbury Hall just a few miles from Napsbury Avenue, London Colney where he lived and where my father Flt Sgt Ron Chapman grew up.

It must have been ‘the talk of the town’ when a German spy was arrested nearby - and a jolt to the British authorities - in May, 1941.

Luckily agent Karel Richter (Pictured) , 29, was nabbed by PC Alec Scott near the North Orbital and London Colney Roundabout. Two lorry drivers became suspicious after they asked Richter for directions to “The North’. Invasion fears meant all road signs had been removed.

It turns out Richter’s intended target was Cambridge. But he actually parachuted into a field beside White Horse Lane, London Colney where he hid up.

Despite having half a salami sausage, bread and some sandwiches, hunger (and cold) forced him out of his hiding place and into the arms of the law.

Richter, codenamed Artist, never completed his mission to deliver money and a spare wireless crystal to another German agent already in the UK. Under questioning, Czech-born Richter refused to ‘turn’ to be a double agent, working for the British.

He was tried for treason and hung, though he fought the jailers and hangman as he headed to the gallows. His ex*****on took an agonising 17 minutes rather than the normal seconds

28/01/2024

WW2 movie moment.

23/01/2024

Golden flyers get caught!

20/01/2024

02/01/2024

January 1, 1942 was a normal working Thursday for my grandparents, John and Jane Chapman. No Bank Holiday.

There was a war on, and my grandfather worked for nearby De Havilland that made vital aircraft such as the Mosquito for the RAF.

But New Year’s Day 1942 was when they received the news – in an official telegram, delivered to their semi-detached house home at 35, Napsbury Avenue, London Colney, Herts.

Their son, Flt Sgt Ron Chapman had been in a plane crash.

Only weeks before they had said goodbye to him as he headed overseas to West Africa.

Now he was recovering from his injuries in a hospital in Palestine (today’s Israel.) Concussion, leg wounds, a smashed jaw and no teeth, but he was alive. Thankfully he’d received medical attention soon after the crash in northern Sudan the day after Boxing Day, 1941.

British surgeons fixed him up so that he was back flying by March, 1942.

The picture shows him climbing into the cockpit of a Hurricane Mk IIc – one of the first planes he flew on his return to piloting fighter planes from West to North Africa.

21/12/2023

When Ron Chapman left St Albans school in 1937, he could hardly have suspected that just five years later he would be piloting warplanes in the Middle East, part of the heroic fight against N**i Germany.

Much less being commemorated in the school’s magazine some eighty years later.

Now the school’s magazine Versa has posted an article about Neil Chapman’s family labour of love to remember his father, the ‘Blighty Thank God’ podcast.

Neil, who lives on Teesside, also attended St Albans School and left in 1972.

Quoted in the article: Neil said: “My father was like so many young men in the RAF, reluctantly forced to be thousands of miles away from home and in many ways the podcast is a tribute to all those reluctant warriors who served.

“Even though my father wasn’t on the front line, to my surprise I discovered he was always in danger. Death – from accidents and horrible diseases – lurked like a ghost throughout the diary. Many he knew or worked alongside were killed in horrible circumstances.

“My father thought he’d never survive the War, hence the podcast title – words of relief he wrote in his pilot’s log book on making it back to the UK, having been posted overseas very early in the war.” he added.

All of Ron’s grandchildren played a part in the podcast, voicing extracts from his diary.

Neil has had a distingujished career in communications with ICI and BP – where in 2010 he was part of the company’s response to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy off the US Coast – before becoming a respected communications trainer and a partner in the Houston-based firm WPNT Communications.

20/12/2023

Victory - and Peace - was in sight. But there was still a long way to go.

Looking ahead to the end of WW2, Noel Coward sang:

“ Don't let's be beastly to the Germans

When we've definitely got them on the run”

Berlin was being pounded by RAF Bomber Command. On the UK Home Front many children would receive handmade (read home-made) toys as presents. While adults were encouraged to give War Savings certificates rather than spend on frivolous things such as gifts.

Meanwhile in a sodden southern Italy, Flt Sgt Ron Chapman (pictured back row centre) and the rest of 267 Squadron were looking forward to a slap- up Christmas feast.

A fitting banquet after a Christmas morning rugby-football match between the squadron’s officers and senior NCOs that resembled a medieval mud battle.

The menu - seen above- included all the traditional Christmas favourites such as turkey and roast pork, sausage and onion stuffing as well as roast spuds , plum pudding , biscuits and cheese and assorted nuts, washed down with beer and a cigarette for afterwards. And all ranks, including Ron and his comrades, were wished a Merry Christmas by the Commanding Officer.

26/11/2023

Two close pilot friends of my father, killed during WW2, are highlighted in Blighty Thank God.

Other names are mentioned – but their stories are particularly poignant and highlight why Remembrance Day is so important.

Both were just doing a job. Neither was on the fighting front line, but were thousands of miles from their homes and families.

Flt. Sgt James Eden from Goosnargh, Lancs (pictured right) took off in an American fighter plane from a base in Egypt, but got into trouble and spun into the ground. He was killed instantly. He was aged 26, married and with a 13-month baby girl.

Flt Sgt John Creighton from Scotforth, Lancs (pictured left) returning to flying duties after being on sick leave. He was a passenger on a BOAC flight landing at Khartoum airport. Everyone on board was killed. He was aged 25. His pilot brother had also been killed just months earlier.

When I managed to speak with Jimmy’s daughter, now in her 80s, she said: “My sense of loss and curiosity about my father has been with me constantly.”

John’s parents lost both their children in under a year – a pain that must have remained with them.

Both Jim and John’s deaths are a reminder that the affects of the war lasted a lifetime for their loved ones.

26/11/2023

The Blighty Thank God podcast has now been downloaded well over 800 times, helped by news feature stories in local news media in both the North and South of the UK.

Patrick Gouldsbrough of the Northern Echo ran a story quoting podcast producer Neil Chapman.

“‘Blighty Thank God’ is a tribute to all the reluctant warriors who served during World War 2,” said Neil.

“In my research, I came across many people looking for information about their relatives who served during WW2. I was lucky to have my father’s diary and logbook.

“I hope I can inspire others to dig deeper into the experiences of their relatives using some of the available resources I discovered and to understand the tremendous courage they displayed going through the war.”

My Local News, which covers the Hemel Hempstead, St Albans and Kings Langley areas north of London, also carried a news story on the podcast. Thanks to journalist Panayiota Demosthenous, the author of the piece.

Neil has also been in demand on local radio, and before Armistice Day he spoke to BBC Radio Tees and BBC Radio Merseyside about the podcast. You can hear his interview on this site.

26/11/2023

A visit to the National Archives at Kew, London is daunting.

If you are trying to research the history of a loved one who was in the military or a particular subject, how do you navigate the thousands of documents? There are many expert researchers who make a living finding their way around the archive for others. That costs.

But you could do it yourself.

Before COVID it would involve

i) Registering with the National Archives at Kew, visiting it and learning how to find your way around documents yourself. That’s daunting and if you are not within day travel of Kew, potentially costly.
ii) Go on-line, search and download documents that have been digitised. However, each file had a fee and sometimes it was only after delving into it that you discover it’s one you want. Again, that costs.
Thankfully since COVID it’s possible to register on-line, browse document descriptions and download any files that have been digitised (up to 10 items per basket).

The relevant website is – www.discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

And while not all files are digitised, it is a lot easier to identify what you might want if you then go yourself, or employ an independent researcher.

Frankly, without the post-COVID service I wouldn’t have been able to afford to create Blighty Thank God.

25/11/2023

‘Blighty Thank God’ features two beautiful versions of The Last Post on different instruments than the bugle, on which it’s traditionally played. One is on violin, played by Rachel Bostock ( ); the other on guitar by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

Photo – the memorial at St. Albans School, St. Albans, Herts. Source: IWM
The Last Post is sounded at military funerals to indicate that the soldier has gone to their final rest. It’s also heard on Remembrance Day in the UK and Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand. In the USA, ‘Taps’ similarly honours fallen veterans.

Both pieces of music are sad and evoke the solemnity suitable for such moving ceremonies.

Including The Last Post in the episode ’When Jim Got His’ about the death of Flt Sgt Jim Eden, and in the episode ‘Story of the Diary’ was very much driven by my personal memories of hearing the music as a student at the school I, my brothers and my father attended – St. Albans School.

The school week included Saturday mornings. So, on the morning of the Saturday closest to Remembrance Sunday we would gather outside for a service by the school’s memorial to pupils who had given their lives in the two world wars.

The student bugler who played The Last Post would be out of sight. I remember the music seemed distant and echoed around the school’s old buildings giving it a haunting sound, with the last note drifting away slowly as if it was being carried away by the wind.

It was moving, even for a young schoolboy. I’m grateful to Rachel herself and to Mark’s management company for their permissions.

25/11/2023

The Blighty Thank God podcast was recently featured on the popular WW2TV channel on YouTube, where BTG creator Neil Chapman’s interview with presenter Paul Woodage has had more than 2000 views so far.

The one-hour show goes into more detail about Flight Sgt Ron Chapman’s war in the Middle East and tells the story of how his diaries were found, 30 years after his death and turned into a podcast and website in a labour of love by his family.

The podcast, which features guest voices from all of Ron’s grandchildren, sheds light on what life was like for young pilots in the early days of the war.

The WW2TV YouTube channel has a staggering 57,000 subscribers and is a great source for military history on the web.

You can see Neil’s interview with Paul Woodage below.

Blighty Thank God! An RAF Pilot in the Middle East and ItalyWith Neil ChapmanPart of RAF Week on WW2TVhttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDG3XyxGI5lAdRwYHuxd...