Richard contacted me to say that he could see from his logbook that he flew with Ken on 4 seperate occasions when converting from Lockheed Hudsons to Flying Fortresses, Richard has since contacted me again and provided me with the details of those 4 flights...

26.08.1942 - Fortress IIA FK210 - Air to sea firing with Richard as Gunner - Flying Time 01.15 hrs
26.08.1942 - Fortress IIA FK210 - Photography exercise - Flying Time 00.20 hrs
03.09.1942 - Fortress IIA FK194 - Benbecula to Burton Wood - Flying Time 02.30hrs
04.09.1942 - Fortress IIA FK194 - Burton Wood to Middleton-St-George - Flying Time 01.35 hrs

Richard was born in July 1920 at Middlesbrough and joined the RAF in August 1940 serving as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner in Coastal Command 206 Squadron. During 1941 to 1943 he flew on the same 1,000 Bomber raid as Ken to Bremen and was a member of the crew which sank a U boat off Iceland. It turns out Richard is a writer and was kind enough to send me a signed copy of his first novel based on his experiences titled 'Towards The Sun', this has been followed up with 2 further titles 'Morning Grass' & 'The Heat Of The Day', these books can be found at http://www.richard-thomas.co.uk/. Since receiving the book I have found out that Richard flew as part of the same crew as Flying Officer John Owen who's mentioned as Person No. 1 above. They flew together from 26.08.1941 to 24.06.1942 almost exclusively on Lockheed Hudsons, some 140 flights!!