Unidentified funeral RAF 1942

[Elliven]

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

[arthurk]

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.)

[despair]

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

[Elliven]

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

[arthurk]

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.

[Elliven]

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

[Treetotal]

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

[arthurk]

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

[despair]

Looks like super-sleuthing to me,Arthur,excellent logic,analysis,searching.

Regards
Roger