New Book on the Crew of a Missing RAF Hudson

[Edward]

Two daughters seeking answers about their fathers who went missing.

On 2 September 1942 Hudson FH385 of no. 269 Squadron at RAF Kaldadarnes, Iceland failed to return from an operational air sea rescue patrol over the North Atlantic.
Entire crew missing believed killed

Flight Lieutenant Alfred C Culver
Pilot Officer N J Graves-Smith
Sergeant G N Barnes
Sergeant W H R Day
Captain Eric W Ravilious (Royal Marines)

Love as Strong as Death: Ravilious, the Pilot, and the Missing Aircraft
(Fighting High Ltd - May 2026)
By Melody Foreman
224 pages w/ 30 b&w photos - hardback (23 x 15 cm)
$35 US

"At dawn on 2 September 1942, a Hudson aircraft lifted into the pale Icelandic sky, and was never seen again. On board was Flight Lieutenant Alfred ‘Ginge’ Culver DFM, just twenty-five years old, together with three fellow airmen of Coastal Command’s No. 269 Squadron. With them flew Eric Ravilious, the brilliant war artist whose luminous watercolours had captured the uneasy stillness of Britain at war. Within hours, all were gone.

What happened in those final moments remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Second World War. Were they victims of a German U-boat or battleship? Did ice and mechanical failure bring them down? Or were they struck by a Luftwaffe reconnaissance plane over the Atlantic?

For decades, questions haunted the families left behind. Carol Lockwood was only eight weeks old when her father, ‘Ginge’ Culver, disappeared. Anne Ullmann was seventeen months old when she waved her father Ravilious goodbye for the last time. Both daughters grew up in the long shadow of loss, their lives intertwined by tragedy.

In Love as Strong as Death, Melody Foreman uncovers the story of two remarkable men – one a romantic, book-loving pilot, the other a visionary artist – whose fates were sealed on that September morning. At once an intimate family history and a moving act of remembrance, this book honours their courage, celebrates their art and service, and pays tribute to a generation of children who never knew their fathers.

The Author
Melody Foreman is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, biographer, historian, literary events host, Accredited Lecturer of The Arts Society, and Member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists. She has written for national and international publications – including Britain at War, The Independent, The Mirror, The Express, and The Mail and has contributed research to ITV documentaries. Melody’s widely acclaimed books include Dad’s Army Goes to War, From the Battlefield to the Big Screen, A Spitfire Girl, and The Wreck Hunter: Battle of Britain & The Blitz.

https://fightinghigh.com/products/lo...trong-as-death

Ravilious in Pictures: The War Paintings
(The Mainstone Press 2010)
by James Russell and Tim Mainstone. Illustrated by Eric William Ravilious
48 pages w/ lithographs of 22 paintings - hardcover

Ravilious in Pictures: The War Paintings celebrates and commemorates the wartime career of Eric Ravilious (1939-42), who died on active service in Iceland at the age of thirty-nine.

As an Official War Artist, Ravilious visited ports, naval bases and airfields around Britain, witnessed the Allied invasion and retreat from Norway and produced watercolours and lithographs of subjects ranging from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in action to the interior of a mobile pigeon loft. This remarkable body of work blends defiance with exhilaration and insists that there is a place for beauty in the darkest times.

Ravilious in Pictures: The War Paintings, features twenty-two of these fascinating images, each accompanied by a short essay in which author James Russell explores the historical context of the work. Drawing on the artist's correspondence and other contemporary sources, these essays offer an unusual, intriguing vision of life during the early years of the war.

From the Publisher
Ravilious in Pictures: The War Paintings is the second book in Ravilious trilogy, which began with Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs (2009)."

https://www.themainstonepress.com/ma...-war-paintings

[Jim Oxley]

Sounds like a good read. Should nicely provide 'the other side to the story' to a book I'm currently reading, namely:

Human Game: The True Story of the 'Great Escape' Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen by Simon Read.

[Jim Oxley]

Oh boy. Just noticed I posted this comment in the wrong thread.