[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

As I suspected, Peter Cornwell has reviewed the WO344/1-410 file at the NA(PRO), as a part of his research for his massive volume "The Battle of France Then and Now."

His comments: “I inspected the WO344/1-410 file during research for BoFrT&N. 'Liberated (British) PoW Questionnaires' contains two-page pro-formas briefly describing the circumstances of the individuals capture and were completed on their repatriation. The file includes completed questionnaires by Army/Navy/Air Force personnel and is organized by alpha surname throughout so if CORBETT completed one at least it should be easy to find. It is NOT a complete record as not every returnee completed one. Also, in my experience, very little additional relevant information was gleaned from these documents but what did emerge has already been incorporated into my RAF loss lists."

However, Peter does suggest that a quick check under Corbett's name might be worth doing to see if anything was missed or overlooked. It may well be that either Corbett never completed a questionnaire, or there was nothing useful in it.

Has anyone out there done any research on the PRU Spitfire pilots and operations during 1940, which might have turned up further details on this loss? If so, someone may already have checked out this man's PoW Questionnaire if such exists, and even made a copy of it.

Have any books been published which feature PRU operations in general during 1939-40, that might help educate me on the subject, and perhaps provide further info on other PRU pilot and a/c losses?

I can't spend a lot of time chasing a dead end, but also don't want to assume that there is nothing further to be learned about what happened to PO Corbett.

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator