There has been an announcement in the Times and Telegraph re the memorial service for Chris. The details are below.
A Service of Thanksgiving for the life and work of Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Moran will be held on Friday 15th October 2010 at 12 noon at the RAF Church of St Clement Danes, Strand, London WC2R 1BH.
Dress for the occasion will be:
Serving Officers:Â Full Ceremonial Day Dress
Civilians: Lounge Suit with Medals
Application for tickets, stating connections and all names of individuals wishing to attend should be made in writing and should be accompanied by a self addressed envelope and reach:
Mrs Michele Small, SO3 RAF Cer Events, ACM Moran, RAF Ceremonial Office, RAF Northholt, Ruislip, Middlesex, HA4 6NG
Notice in today’s Telegraph. Memorial for Chris Moran will be on Friday 15 October at St Clement Danes.
The Jever Steam Laundry has its own website. Lots of stuff there on IV(AC) Sqn at Jever and the people on the Sqn at the time.
Worth checking out…
Janet Finlayson has let me know of some special airport rates from Stamford for HMF only:
- Garden House Hotel Stamford to Heathrow Airport all terminals £100.00 single, £200.00 return.
- Garden House Hotel Stamford to Gatwick Airport all terminals £110.00 single, £220.00 return
- Garden House Hotel Stamford to Luton or Stansted Airport £75.00 single, £150.00 return
The vehicle is a Mercedes S Class 430 and the company is Silverlight Prestige Cars. Email me for their numbers.
Tom Pierce
Thanks to John Wickham for noticing this story in the RAF News:
From Tiger Moths to Lightnings
A World War II hero who went on to have a 32-year career in the RAF has died aged 90.
Air Cdre Tom Pierce’s flying experience stretched from Tiger Moth biplanes to Lightning supersonic fighters.
He was born in 1919 in Liverpool to Welsh parents – his father, Robertus, had a distinguished WWI record in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
He started elementary flying training at Hatfield on Tiger Moths in April 1938 – to see if he was any good as a pilot before being accepted for the RAF.
At the start of WWII, he was deployed to France flying Westland Lysanders with No IV (AC) Sqn as part of the British Expeditionary Force; fifty per cent of his fellow pilots did not return after France fell in 1940.
Read the full story in RAF News
1940 Chronicle
Relive 1940 day by day: the RAF Benevolent Fund has launched 1940 Chronicle, a website that blogs the daily events of 1940 in real time.
Anybody with an interest in history or aviation should take a look.
Chris Moran’s funeral is going to be a private, family affair. There will be a public memorial service in London, perhaps Westminster Abbey, in July.
More details will be published here when available.
Chris Moran
I’ve just heard the shocking news that Chris “Boggy” Moran collapsed and died during a triathlon yesterday (26 May) at Brize Norton.
Chris was a Squadron pilot during the early ’80s, went on to command the Squadron 1994-96, and continued to progress through the service reaching the rank of Air Chief Marshal and the post of Commander-in-Chief Air Command.
Our thoughts today go out to Chris’s wife Lizzie and his two daughters and son. Details about the funeral will be posted as they come in.
BBC News link
Wikipedia link
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Chris Moran
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1981: The Bog-In
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Falklands 1983
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Wittering 2001
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Cottesmore 2002: Sqn Bosses
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Cottesmore 2002
Here’s a link to some great photos of Gutersloh – from our friends at the Gutersloh Spotting Group via John Wickham.
Robin Olds
I received this email from Monica at St. Martin’s Press:
Wanted to make you aware about this book we recently published. The long-anticipated memoirs of the greatest fighter pilot in American military history, Robin Olds.
By Robin Olds with Christina Olds and Ed Rasimus
Visit the link below for reviews, excerpt, Q&A and photos of the book.
Enjoy!
Monica,
St. Martin’s Press
http://us.macmillan.com/fighterpilot
From the blurb:
The widely anticipated memoir of legendary ace American fighter pilot, Robin Olds.
Robin Olds was a larger-than-life hero with a towering personality. A graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army, Olds was one of the toughest college football players at the time. In WWII, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22—and an ace with 12 aerial victories.
But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend. He arrived in 1966 to find a dejected group of pilots and motivated them by placing himself on the flight schedule under officers junior to himself, then challenging them to train him properly because he would soon be leading them. Proving he wasn’t a WWII retread, he led the wing with aggressiveness, scoring another four confirmed kills, becoming a rare triple ace.
Olds (who retired a brigadier general and died in 2007) was a unique individual whose personal story is one of the most eagerly anticipated military books of the year.
The book has been co-authored by Ed Rasimus who flew the F-105 Thunderchief and the F-4 Phantom on active duty in Vietnam. I’ve read both his books – When Thunder Rolled and Palace Cobra – and they’re both excellent. I’ll be buying Fighter Pilot.
I’ve added a new page – Sqn Operating Bases – from the official History of IV(AC) Squadron.
I’ve found an official – i.e. the RAF’s – version of the history of the Squadron, as a downloadable pdf on the RAF website. It’s now on the fourfax server. To download the file (6.3mb), click here to get it from fourfax or click here to get it from the RAF.
To read a pdf file you will need a copy of Adobe Reader (or Preview, preinstalled on a Mac).
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