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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Topic started by: Elliven on Tuesday 30 October 18 15:32 GMT (UK)
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This is an unidentified RAF funeral from 1942. If I can read a name and a date from the gravestone in the foreground, I might be able to identify the location. Can anyone perform a miracle?
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Hello Elliven,
I had a try but it was showing blurred for me. Is it possible to just scan and crop the gravestone(s) ?
Regards
Sarah
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The name on the headstone with the flower pot in front possibly reads
Julian John Evans
Tony
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I agree with Sarah...if you could just scan the headstone at 600-800dpi then we would have a better chance of reading the name and the date and age at death.
John is the middle name and the surname only appears to have four letters that could be Evan or similar.
Carol
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First glance looks like 18th Nov 1936?
The other grave stone - looks like a surname with a double FF or double PP in the middle - Griffin, Coppin?
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Thank you all for your efforts. I have tried dozens of name combinations just to see if I could identify the graveyard from a named grave but with no success. I think I am going to have to try identifying the church/chapel in the picture which is most likely in the Nottinghamshire or Lincolnshire areas. I cannot even hope to identify anyone in the picture. They are all in the Air Force so even if the youngest of them was alive today he/she would be at least 94 years old and probably nearer the 100+ mark. I cannot get a better resolution scan either.
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I had already tried the method suggested by Sarah but it just blurs
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The name on the headstone with the flower pot in front possibly reads
Julian John Evans
Tony
Didn't seem like enough letters for "Evans". Also where the H would be in "John" looks more rounded.
I read it as "Julian Jock Eves". What do you think?
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.
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https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch?DetsView=Summary&src=ext&fileid=7573240
Need money to look at the entry though
Joseph John Evans ?
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Why not contact the Air Crew Remembrance Society website to see if they can help. I can't post a link from the iPad.
Carol
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http://www.aircrewremembrancesociety.co.uk/styled/index.html
http://www.aircrewremembrancesociety.co.uk/
Link on their page;
https://www.webarchive.org.uk/
Annie
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The church is of a very common style but also it very typical of “Wool churches” ,in other words
Churches built in Suffolk and other East Anglian counties in places like Thaxted, Lavenham and Long
Melford,Saffron Walden etc.
Also of course there were many R.A.F.bases in East Anglia.
A long shot but hopefully it may help you somewhat.
If you could find the person on the gravestone and the date which looks a bit like 1942, you could look on fbmd,a free site which has extensive records and at least get the area if not the exact place.
Viktoria.
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What chance it is St Marys and All Saints Great Budworth,Cheshire?I had a decent graveyard picture then lost it on a touch sensitive ipad!There was an RAF funeral there(Sgt Kenneth Wright),but it was 1941.
Regards
Roger
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I thought the first picture here bore a reasonable resemblance
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2508997/saint-mary-and-all-saints
Regards
Roger
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Try Honningtin All Saints Church,there is quite a good sized RAF cemetery there.
Viktoria,
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Thanks to all for the incredible response. Viktoria's idea about Norfolk & Suffolk is promising as the Squadron had a presence in Docking, Norfolk. The windows in the tower of St Mary's Church don't match up but 97% of the Polish airmen were Roman Catholics so there funerals were more likely to be at RC churches - unless there were military plots for all religions in the parish churchyard.
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https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch?DetsView=Summary&src=ext&fileid=7573240
Need money to look at the entry though
Joseph John Evans ?
This entry is from the Northern Cemetery (Bulwell), Nottingham, so won't be the right one, since we're looking for a churchyard.
I wondered if the surname on the right hand stone might be EYRE, with middle name John or Joan. First name Julian, as already suggested, or Julius?
FreeBMD has one or two names which might fit, but the years don't seem to match what I think I can see on the stone - 1936 or 1934.
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arthurk,
You are the second person to suggest J……….. Joan Eyre! The person who has the original photo cannot read the name and has tried a high res scan but with no success. Once before, I hit lucky in identifying a church by sending a photo to the Diocesan Office so I might try that again
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Viktoria's idea about Norfolk & Suffolk is promising as the Squadron had a presence in Docking, Norfolk.
Do you have a particular squadron in mind? Or if you mentioned it, did I miss it? If we knew that, we might be able to narrow the search down considerably to places near where they were stationed. (Unless of course the person concerned was buried miles away near their home.)
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There are squadron summaries on the website listed below,which includes stationing/casualties("losses") by date.
It would be quite some effort to go through it!
https://www.polishsquadronsremembered.com
Regards
Roger
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To arthurk: the photos came from the collection of a man who was in 304 Squadron at the time they were taken (1942/43) but he was also in 302 Squadron and had connections to other Polish Squadrons including 305.
To despair: I have been through all those files and many more besides and still can't identify the burial place. If I could do that, I would be able to narrow down the funeral possibilities significantly
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It's a bit hard to make him out, but the priest might be in typical RC attire (biretta and short cotta rather than a longer Anglican surplice), which would fit with a Polish ceremony. However, some Anglican clergy have tended to wear that kind of thing too, so that can't really be ruled out.
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arthurk
About 97% of Polish airmen were RC so I would bet that you are right. I am still trying to identify the church and it's locality but my bet is that it is either Notts, Lincs or Norfolk area
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These links might be of interest:
http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/304_wwII.html
http://www.belgians-remember-them.eu/squadron301-350.php
http://www.rafingham.co.uk/304%20Squadron.html
Carol
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I think I might have got it.
Method: at the CWGC site, look for WW2 casualties between 1941 and 1943, and use filters to restrict to Polish and Air Force with a memorial in the UK. This gave me a list of 555.
Sort the list by cemetery/location, pick out the churchyards and do a Google search for pictures. (I have a browser add-on which allows me to do this very quickly, and as most of the casualties are in cemeteries rather than churchyards it wasn't such a long list.)
The one I've come up with is Henlow, Bedfordshire, where there was a single Polish burial - Jan KLIMCZAK, who died on 28 Jan 1943. CWGC record is at https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/7503678/klimczak,-jan/
The page gives a bit more about where he was serving.
There's a bit about RAF Henlow at https://henlow-pc.gov.uk/raf-camp/ but I haven't looked into this or a possible Polish connection.
The church in our photo has a few distinctive features: large buttresses on tower (shown by shadows), castellation round the chancel roof, and a tall chimney on the north aisle/vestry. Henlow seems to have all these:
http://www.henlowchurch.org.uk/st-marys.htm
https://bedfordshireparishchurches.co.uk/wp/henlow/
And the closest view I could find to the one in our photo:
http://mayflowerhistory.com/tilley-john/
EDIT:
Jan KLIMCZAK's memorial at Findagrave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31076044/jan-klimczak
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Looks like super-sleuthing to me,Arthur,excellent logic,analysis,searching.
Regards
Roger
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Arthur, what is the Name of the google add on?
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This could be the big breakthrough! RAF Henlow is very significant to both of the funerals (that may well be only one funeral!) mentioned in this thread. All the men known to be involved were actually ground crew and RAF Henlow was, at the time, the home of 14 School of Technical Training and this school was attended by many Poles in all the Polish Squadrons!
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Great detective work Arthur!
Jan Klimczak is mentioned here:
https://listakrzystka.pl/en/klimczak-jan-2/
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arthurk,
Occam's Razor is blunt compared to you!
I can't thank you enough! You have absolutely cracked it. The coats tell you it was a cold weather funeral and 28th January 1943 fits the bill. Comparing your photograph with mine, the two churches are near identical and the deceased person was a 30 year old clerk who you would not think would attract a huge number of attendees at his funeral well over 1,000 miles from his home in wartime. I have yet to find out how he died but he was at the same School of Technical Training as the man amongst whose effects this photo was found and at the same time! The other man mentioned was Marian Bogatek also of 304 Squadron and also at that school at the very same time. I am now certain that both men knew the deceased and the big crowd were probably mostly from the school. Marian Bogatek's family also had a photo of what looked like the same funeral. There are so many similarities that I am convinced. Thanks again
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This just says he died in hospiital.
http://www.aircrewremembered.com/AlliedLossesIncidents/?q=klimczak
Roger
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Is this the same man, or just a coincidence of names...
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01my9/
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Just a coincidence! There were three men of that name serving in the Polish Air Force - a clerk, a fireman and a technical officer
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To despair
I will find out, if it is possible! The owner of that site is a personal friend and I have many other contacts both here and in Poland
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Well done Arthur...brilliant detective work....you should get a gold star ⭐️ ;D ;D
I looked through my collection of church postcards but although some were similar, I couldn't find a match. Glad it's been solved as I think that a lot of us were working behind the scenes to try to solve it.
Carol
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And all those efforts are very well appreciated Carol! I have been able to inform two families - one in England and one in Australia - just what their photographs were about.
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Following on from Arthur's brilliant find, here is a nice photo of the gravestone with the church in the background.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96555212@N08/42189146552/
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Absolutely amazing work by Arthur! And thanks also to him for letting us know the method by which he solved the puzzle.
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Following on from Arthur's brilliant find, here is a nice photo of the gravestone with the church in the background.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96555212@N08/42189146552/
Thanks for that photo - it will be winging its way to Lancashire and Australia within minutes to the families of two of the men present in the photo
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Neville, can I just comment that you do a wonderful job researching the stories of these Polish airmen and highlighting their contribution to the war effort.
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Arthur, what is the Name of the google add on?
There are quite a few of these available - the ones I currently use are SearchBar in Chrome, and Swift Selection Search in Firefox. Some of them use the search engines you already have set up in your browser, while others need to be configured separately; either way, you can usually set up as many different search engines as you want.
You can find them as Extensions at the Chrome Web Store or the Firefox Add-ons site, and these terms will bring up most of the options: 'selection search', 'context search', 'right click search'.
The idea is that you select a chunk of text, then the extension provides a button or menu item which puts the text straight into a search engine and runs the search. I find they save a massive amount of typing or copy-and-pasting.
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I've been following this thread from the sideline since it was first posted. Arthur, what excellent detective work you did to solve this. Well done! :)
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JenB,
Thank you, I try my best and I do it free of charge. The families in Poland or wherever get a free genealogy job and I get a story for my blog. I have had two awards which mean more because they are from Poland and honorary membership of the Polish 44th Naval Aviation Division. I am always grateful to the people on this site because they ALWAYS try to help. This is one of the biggest and fastest efforts made so far.
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JenB,
Thank you, I try my best and I do it free of charge. The families in Poland or wherever get a free genealogy job and I get a story for my blog. I have had two awards which mean more because they are from Poland and honorary membership of the Polish 44th Naval Aviation Division. I am always grateful to the people on this site because they ALWAYS try to help. This is one of the biggest and fastest efforts made so far.
What a worthwhile thing to do.....well done and keep going 8)
This may help with others too.
http://www.aircrewremembered.com/AlliedLossesIncidents/?q=Klimczak
Carol
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JenB,
Yes, Kelvin Youngs who runs that site is a personal friend. We have met and we have co-operated on quite a few projects. He was particularly helpful to me when I first started out, 12 years ago, when a lot of the "experts" had little time for a newbie. He is a good man and very knowledgeable.
Neville
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Thank you all for your kind words, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been long before someone else found it.
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arthurk,
I have been trying to identify this funeral location for years - you did it overnight. That's what I call amazing! You deserve every bit of credit and acclaim you have received. I have already sent information and a copy of the recent grave photo to ladies in Australia and Lancashire and both have responded very positively. So your work has been appreciated much further afield than you could have imagined. Accept the credit, my friend, it is well deserved.
Neville
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A minor point
I think arthurk correctly identified the priest as RC,whereas the church,I think, is C of E.
Roger
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despair,
you are quite right but it may be that the RAF arranged the burial locally in a designated war grave plot.
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It was purely an observation.
Roger
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despair,
I have just been informed that the plot was arbitrarily chosen by the Royal Air Force because it was the closest available. I have seen this before with a Catholic airman buried in a C of E churchyard in Yorkshire. Thanks for your help and your interest.
Neville