ED347 Dec 1942

[Liz Lynes]

I have posted here about 2/3 years ago, and I am writing again to ask whether anyone reading this would have any knowledge of, or the whereabouts of the families of these crew members of ED347, lost over Holland on 20th Dec 1942.
They are:-
Sgt John Sykes who came from Bradford.
Sgt Harold Burrows Stokes, from Rochester
Sgt James Hill, from Manchester
Sgt George Clive Wing from Hampton.

I have managed to make contact with the other two crew members which has been excellent. The final member is my father.

Any information would be very gratefully recieved, and thankyou for any help in advance.

[Marcel Hogenhuis]

Dear Mrs. Lynes,

As ED347 sounded very familiar to me, I looked into your posting to find this particular Lancaster I am so interested in. First things first: unfortunately I have nor had any contacts with the relatives of those crewmembers who perished in the crash near Oosterhout, but normally a request to the Air Historical Branch of the RAF is a good start.

You probably know already that Lancaster ED347 was lost due to a nightfighter of Luftwaffe airfield Venlo (my main subject of research). I can send you additional data to complete the story from the German perspective.

The BIG question which puzzles me quite long, is the bomb load of this Lancaster, a detail not recorded afterwards in the Operational Record Book of 9 Sqdn.RAF because no one returned to tell the debriefing officers... The sought info about the bomb load is most important to me because then I can rule out the little chance, that it was Lancaster ED347 who dropped a heavy 4000lbs 'Cookie' bomb near Venlo, causing a monumental big bang.

Do you know mister Jan Jolie from Oosterhout ? He is the local air war historian and probably most interested to establish contact with you as well. Perhaps we better continue this conversation off board:
marcelhogenhuis[at]gmail.com

Looking forward to send you what I have at the moment, yours sincerly,

Marcel Hogenhuis / Venlo
- airfield Venlo in WW-2 research
- He219 project

[lancaster103]

Hi Liz,

Like Marcel said, Jan Jolie is the man you must have for exchange information. I have passed your entry to Jan Jolie. He will contact you directly or I will put you in touch.

Cheers,
Adrian

[Liz Lynes]

Hi Adrian,
Thanks for the post, I am already in touch with Jan Joli and have been for some time. Both he and I are anxious to make contact, if possible, with the families of the remaining four crew members in order to enhance the book Jan is writing. I think this is probably a lost cause, but it is certainly worth exploring every avenue. Thank you though, for your interest and concern.

Liz,Adrian,Marcel & Jan,

Just by accident a friend of mine found this site as I had emailed him I search I did on Google for George Clive Wing my Uncle and my Dads brother........ I can not tell you all how excited I was that you wanted to get in touch with family of George Clive Wing [known as Clive].

A little background on myself and family. I was born in Sunbury England on Jan. 16th 1956. My parents, Maurice (Clive's youngest brother) and Kim left England in May of 1959 to Toronto (Dad worked for Lucas). We later moved to Detroit in 62' and [fast forward] with my wife [also named Kim] we have lived in Michigan for over 32 years.

While I will research and share as much information as you would like, her is a quick look back at my Uncle Clive and his family..... Firstly, as I did indirectly finding this forum - Searched "George Clive Wing" on Google with went to Wikipedia and noted [information I already knew, but not known it was on Wikipedia] a brief history of Clive and the fact that he was the first air cadet to fly solo. I actually have that newspaper article. I f you read the Wikipedia article, you will get the full information.

Clive was the 2nd oldest of 4 brothers. Maurice [who passed away 3 years ago at 82] was the youngest, Derek was 2nd youngest and Gordon Hirons Wing was the oldest. Interesting that Gordon flew tail gunner on Sterlings, Wellingtons & B-17's. He formed the Air Gunners Club, that used to meet once a month [in England] years ago. I was fortunate enough to go to one of these pub like meetings and they were great! Ironically, Gordon (Howie) flew over 234 hours, I guess 2 ops. Gordon was on ground control until Clive got shot down and then went into operations as a tail gunner. He made it back safely from all and lived a nice long civilian life. Clive (of course wanted to be a pilot] but there was a long waiting list and they only way he could go to war was as a gunner - mid-upper, I believe. I remember my Grandma telling me she remembers the knock at the door (and Mother's intuition told her bad news) when she was told of Clive's death. The Wing Family address was 167 Percy Rd. Hampton, Middlesex England. I actually have both my Uncle Gordon's and Uncle Clive's log books. It seems strange that the las entry was on the Defient aircraft from Dalcross on 18/09/42. Dates and aircraft do not match up nor does the flight crew names. Perhaps no entries were made after the last noted entry for some reason. Any help/comments are welcome! I visited back in 1974, Clive and his crew's grave in Holland. I am new to posting and hope I am doing this correctly. I am very open and certainly would love to share more information for general audience and of course for Jan's book [if it has not been published by now]. Cheers Rob Clive Wing

[Quercus]

Rob Clive Wing is looking for me.
Please Rob make contact in concerning your brother George Clive Wing [known as Clive].