[afcbsimon]

Hi Brian,

Your 30 Sqn man P/O D.S Kirkman should be J.S Kirkman

James Spedding Kirkman 77941

Kirkman had a bad stutter and this caused some consternation to his pilots when he was giving them instructions on evading fighters.

Kirkman, James

Basic Biographical Information



James Spedding Kirkman (OBE, FSA) was born in 1906. After graduating from Cambridge in 1928, he worked in various outposts of the British Empire including Borneo (as an administrative officer) and Ceylon (as a tea planter). His plans to work in Iraq were interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served as a rear gunner with the RAF. He was posted to the Middle East during the war, becoming fluent in Arabic and afterward worked briefly at the Iraqi embassy in London, later joining the External Services of the BBC (Croome 1989; The Times 1989).


Between his stints in Ceylon and Iraq, Kirkman had worked as a volunteer at the Castle Dove and later the Maiden Castle excavations (under Mortimer Wheeler) in the early 1930s. He also spent three years excavating in Palestine. This along with his World War II posting kindled an interest in Islamic culture (Croome 1989). He returned to archaeology in 1948.

Regards,
Simon