New website for RAF Aircraft Losses September 1939 to August 1940.

[Martin Gleeson]

Hello all.

I am happy to announce the culmination of many years of research with the establishment of a website to host the results and to make this work available to my fellow researchers and aviation historians.
This website contains the vast majority of Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm aircraft losses in northern Europe – lost, write-offs and damaged – for the period 1 September 1939 to 31 August 1940.

https://martinaviationpages.com/

These daily listings were compiled originally for the now-defunct ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ research project. This was planned to be a huge effort to document in unprecedented detail the air war over northern Europe, less the Russo-Finnish Winter War, from 1 September 1939 to 31 December 1940.
‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ was the brainchild of Larry J. Hickey, a noted American aviation historian. However, his death in August 2021 brought an immediate end to what could have been an unparalleled aviation publishing series.
The early years of the air war had always interested me greatly and I was keen to learn more and somehow contribute to the ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ project. Peter Cornwell introduced me to Larry in 2011 and I joined the ‘team’. My initial task was to review the daily listings of R.A.F. losses as then held by the ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ management and help with some extra detail, such as full names of personnel and some geographical locations. I quickly realized that I could do more and began to collect primary source material. As I progressed, gaining more experience and source material, I was able to add new losses (both write-offs and damaged), extra details, corrections, etc.

Because the effort on the ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ task was so demanding of my time and resources I more or less had to set aside my own projects. Some years before Larry passed away in August 2021 I realized ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ was unlikely to see fruition. However, mostly for my own satisfaction and a desire not to have all of that research wasted, I decided to complete my work on the first 12 months of the air war regardless. I have spent over 13 years fully immersed in ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ but am happy to share my work, even in a basic form, with fellow enthusiasts and hopefully future generations.
I did not wish to attempt to publish this work in book form, but decided to try the website route as a quicker and cheaper way to achieve this. I am especially keen at this stage of my life to return to and complete my earlier research projects. I have admired a number of specialist websites over the years because of their quality and particular field of coverage. Another major factor was due to the regular updating and addition of new material. In this regard I would highlight the websites of Dennis Burke, Nick Beale, Soren Flensted and Håkan Gustavsson. I would hope to be able to follow that general pattern on this website.


August 1940

Bar May 1940 I have spent more time working on August 1940 than any other month. Yet, due to revamping my original work for EOE to suit this website, I now find that this month is the least finished. It will take considerable time before I am satisfied to upload it for viewing. Rather than wait until the entire month is ready I will probably put each day up as I complete them, or maybe several at a time.


Feedback and Future Work

It is my plan to be able to upload corrections and new information on an irregular basis. Feedback from viewers would be most welcome and helpful, especially from primary sources that I have not seen. I can be contacted by email and there will be a link on the website.
Eventually, as time allows, I may put some other aviation material on the website not directly connected to the ‘EOE’ project but stemming from other work I had previously done and maybe some primary source material.


Sources.

During the earlier years of my ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ research I only added sources to specific entries where I had new or corrected information. However I gradually became troubled by the belief that all entries should be fully sourced. Questions arose for me such as what sources were used in the first place ? Or how could I prove the existing and often long-published details were actually correct ? This was reinforced by the many errors I found as I progressed. I have always felt the need to have to back up with documentation, etc. anything I have ever offered for public scrutiny. This project even more so than most.
The entries as I originally wrote them were formatted in the fashion used by the ‘EAGLES OVER EUROPE’ team. Since the demise of that project I have had to revise and rewrite much of my previous work and expand the sources and notes greatly in order to place it on this stand-alone website. That part of the work alone has taken over two years, but has not been in vain. I have been able to add much more material and correct a lot of errors in my previous efforts !

I have used primary and original sources as much as possible. I have supplemented these with information from various published works where certain details could not be found in the primary sources and where it seemed reasonable to do so. A small number of entries are based entirely on their inclusion in a specific published work, such as a biography, and especially where the information appeared reliable and accurate, such as the inclusion of photographed Flying Logbook pages.
All such calls were my own judgement, and I do not claim infallibility. I am sure I have made lots of errors or omissions, and would be quite happy to receive corrections and additional information. The saying “I stand on the shoulders of others” is never more true here. I fully recognize I have much more information readily at hand, both primary and published material, than researchers and authors who first ‘ploughed these fields’. Much of it easily available on my computer, through downloads or on websites.

I would strongly recommend viewers to read the full ‘Introduction’ on the website to have a better understanding of the history, scope and methodology used for the project.

Finally, I hope viewers will find the website and its contents useful to their research and work.

Regards,

Martin Gleeson.

[edwest2]

Hello Martin,

Thank you for this. I had hoped to see the EoE project come to fruition and see print. As I understand that doing such work takes time, I would hope to see some losses on the German side as well. Best of luck.

Regards,
Ed West

[FrankieS]

super. thank you.

what is still needed is an edited integration of all WW2 losses websites.
maybe some day ...

[Martin Gleeson]

Thanks guys,

It is a real pity that such an ambitious project as EOE was never brought to fruition. Many other people were working on the German side. Where all that work has gone I do not know.

Regards,

Martin.

[Martin Gleeson]

I have just uploaded all of January 1940.

Regards,

Martin.

[robert]

Hi Martin,

superb idea!

Best regards

Robert

P.S. I do have all German losses from EOE project.