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Notes:
When considering the loss of
allied airmen in Bomber Command it is important to remember that
with each young life that was sacrificed there was also a great
deal of potential lost with it. On top of being fine young men,
many of them had brilliant futures ahead of them, Flight
Lieutenant Georges Eades is a fitting example.
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Flight
Lieutenant George Hadley Templeton Eades RAFVR
The
Airman
If
I should die, don’t think of me at all
Unless,world-weary,you
prefer like me
To
waste your life against life’s ocean-wall
And
spend your freedom crying to be free.
Think
then, this May, how building whitethroats call
In
England’s woods, and how from every tree
Blanched
blossom dangles, and young girls are all
In
love, and green corn slants above the sea
I
never asked for life, nor thanked who gave
Me
unconsulted to the angry years
In
sacrifice. My soul, not framed a slave,
Climbed
to the clouds and with those other brave
Welcomed
the bullets that belied our fears,
The
last long dive to death, and this, our grave. |
George Eades was the second of three sons of Frank and
Caroline Eades,both school teachers. His father was serving in the
Royal Artillery when George was born. After the war, his parents
became Headmaster and Headmistress at the Church of England School
at Blaby where George started school in 1920.Aged nine George was
accepted at the prestigious Grammar school, Wyggeston in
Leicester. His educational achievements were outstanding, taking
firsts in form prizes from 1926 to 1930.
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George's
Mother, Frank, Roger & George on right |
In 1930 he produced the Form magazine "Renown", a 47
page handwritten magazine with most of the material, plays stories
and sketches contributed by George himself. In 1931 he passed the
Leicestershire General school certificate with Honours and
Matriculation with Distinctions in English,History,French and
Maths moving on to advanced studies before winning an Open
exhibition in English Literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge
before gaining in June 1937 a Second Class, Division One Honours
B.A.degree.After Cambridge George went on to Leicester University
College as a part time student only, his father having been killed
on the 13th January 1939.He is noted as completing his
course for a Teacher’s Education certificate at Vaughan College
in 1940 prior to enlisting in the Royal Air Force Volunteer
reserve on the 15th July 1940.During his time at
Leicester University College he played in the College’s Rugby XV
A fellow student, now Dr Frank Rodwell remembers "George
Eades is best remembered as a quiet gentleman respected by
everybody and almost looked upon as a fount of wisdom. When he
started to talk you stopped and listened. He seemed to be living
on a shoe string, and to help him a little the Student’s Union
made him a small payment to put on a play composed by himself. I
saw the play but can no longer recall the plot. It had an unusual
title, something like "A Play within a Play". He was
another player in the Rugby XV, but nothing notable about his play
comes to mind. I guess his height was valuable in the
line-outs"
A Leicester newspaper in March 1940 mentions George as a
playwright, one "Helen and the Undergraduate" was
described as a curtain raiser and another "All the Men and
Women" was a three-act comedy with George taking one of the
leads himself.
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George
(left) with brother Frank |
On the 15th July 1940,George enlisted into the
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve with the recommendation that he
should be trained as a commissioned Pilot/Observer. Initial
Training was done at Cardington and Torquay, followed by
Elementary Flying Training at No 6.HW.
Chiltern
view
The
river winds through the valley
But
the road cuts over the hill.
Go
early, you’ll hear the reveille
And
the west wind whispering shrill
In
the wires on top of the hill
You
can look down over the beeches,
Out
over the Oxford plain
Where
the dawn’s arm bends and reaches
For
the sleep of mist that’s lain
In
her eyes all night on the plain.
Up
under you big bombers grumble
Angrily
circling their nest;
But
you feel at peace and humble
With
the white cool clouds at your breast
And
the hill for both plane and nest.
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He was then sent to No 32 Senior Flying
Training School, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,, Canada for Flying
Training in November 1940 and qualified as a pilot on the 21st
of February 1941 when he was awarded his Flying Badge and
commissioned as a Pilot Officer.
Waiting for his journey back to England, his
thoughts turned to home:
April
Two
thousand miles of ocean
Turn
night-time into day-
A
day of Spring in England
Two
thousand miles away.
What
spring comes in these spruce-woods?
The
little gaufers run,
The
sap climbs into the maples
And
the snow melts in the sun…..
In
the long hours of darkness
How
desolate one can be!
Missing
the spring in England
There
is no spring for me. |
It was at this time he wrote the poem "A
Dream of England" which some fifty years later would be
featured in the Autumn 1999 edition of This England.
In April 1941,George returned to England for
Operational Training at No 10 O.T.U. No 6 Group at Abingdon, where
he trained on Whitley Bombers, subsequently being posted for
operational duties to No 58 Squadron at RAF Linton-On-Ouse,Yorkshire.
During this time he compiled his anthology of twenty-five poems
covering his first years in the RAF, which he called "Thy Muse
Hath Wings". Information about this period is scarce but in
January 1942 he was sent on a Flying Instructors’ Course. Here he
became qualified to instruct on Elementary and Multi-engined
Intermediate Training Type Aircraft.
On the 7th
January 1942,his mother died of cancer at the age of 66.This must
have been a terrible tragedy for the boys, now orphaned and
separated by War. His other brother Frank was in the RAF and Roger
in the Army.
George then went back to his original Operational training
Unit (No 10),but this time as an instructor. For almost the whole of
1942 he stayed there, receiving promotion, first to Flying Officer
and then Flight Lieutenant. His epic poem "Operation by
Night" describing the preparations, the flight, the attack and
the return for an actual Bombing mission and comprising some 122
stanzas was published by Hodder and Stoughton.
On the 15th December 1942,George was returned to
Operational Flying Duties with 431 Iroquois Squadron, which was in
the process of forming up. Little is known of him during this time
until the fateful evening of March 26th 1943,when with
the rest of his crew, in Wellington X HE-503 SE-S, he took off from
RAF Burn at 18.55 hours with another 113 aircraft to bomb Duisberg,
Germany. This was the first operation for George and his crew, the
squadron Operational Records Book lists the crew as:
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First Name |
Trade |
Service |
Hometown |
Age |
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F/L George Eades |
Pilot |
RAFVR |
- |
28 |
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F/L Allan Myrick Hill |
Navigator |
RCAF |
North Vancouver, British Columbia |
- |
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F/L Norman Joseph Gardner |
Bomb Aimer |
RAFVR |
- |
24 |
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W/O2 Benjamin Ducker |
W/Op/AG |
RCAF |
Lashbourn,Saskatchewan |
29 |
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W/O2 Joseph Michael Rogal |
Rear Gunner |
RCAF |
Griffin, Saskatchewan |
24 |
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Navigator F/Lt
Alan Hill |
George and his crew were the second 431
Squadron crew that failed to returrn since it began operations,
however the Dyers crew, lost a few weeks earlier survived to become
POW's. Sadly George and his crew were the first 431 Squadron crew to
be killed in action, presumed to have crashed into the sea. The body
of Sgt Ducker was found in the Baltic Sea and he now lies in Kviberg
Cemetery on the West Coast of Sweden. The rest of the crew were
never found and are remembered on the Runnymede Memorial.
George Eades had two books published prior to
his death."Thy Muse Hath Wings", a series of short poems
of his training in the RAF containing many poems he composed while
serving at Initial Training Wing including "The ghoul in the
Link-Trainer" & "Dog Watch", Elementary Flying
Training School "Flight at Sundown", "Dawn
Flight" and many more, Service Flying Training School in Canada
including "Winter Wings", "Shades of Debert",
more written at his Operational training Unit, including
"Ballad of the Bomber Boys" "First Solo in a
Whitley", and "Operation by Night" comprising of one
long poem about one of his bombing missions.
Notes and
Credits W/O2
Rogal has a geographical memorial, Rogal Lake, south of Porcupine
Plain, Sask. (63D6) 52 deg 25 min & 103 Deg 11 min. W/O2 Ducker
has a geographical memorial at Ducker Lake, East of Grandmother’s
Bay, Sask. (73 P9) 55 deg 39min & 104 deg 33 min. Permission
must be sought before reproducing/copying any of the poems in this
article, for more information of F/L Eades and his creative works
contact George Eades- poeticpilot@yahoo.co.uk Thanks
to Veteran’s affairs Canada (Steve St.Amant) for the photograph of
F/L Hill.
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