Canadian Airgun Forum

Just wanted to share this..

This is the reason I chose Tail Air Gunner as my Username on the forum.

On my wall is a large photo frame from 1941 Of a young 20 years old named Ronald Jackson.

He was a Sgt “ Air Gunner”, ( Hence the AG wing patch on the frame ) in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
As an air gunner his position in the bomber may have been in the tail or the noose, ( Tail Air Gunner )
As a young boy, he was into making model airplanes and collected and reading any aviation magazine he could.
His passion was for planes and to fly, and enjoyed being in uniform as we has a member of the boy scouts.
He was a well liked and outdoors type person from first hand accounts of people who knew him well.
His father was a retired Royal Air Force member from the UK, and this two older brothers Arthur and Douglass were already officers in the air force.

On Aug 7th 1942 at around 23:15 hrs he and five other men boarded a Vickers Wellington BOMBER Plane HF-855 on a night training exercise.
from Stratford upon Avon RFC air base in England

There were four Canadians including himself, and one 19 year old American
who was the pilot of the plane. Ronald took his place in the machine gunners turret and strapped in
for this midnight flight.

Approx, 6 min after take off, the plane lost power and the engines stalled, they were in a right hand bank ( Turning )
H.Q was in radio communication with the plane and knew what was happening but there was nothing they could do.
At 23:35 hrs the plane crashed in Bicester county in the UK countryside.
Ronald and the other four young men all perished in the crash.

Below is the framed of Ronald when he was in training in Canada, and his spare set of AG wing.
The newspaper clipping of him having been killed in Action

Other photos are just to show the kind of plane he was flying in, and the cramped turret he had to sit it.
Photo a wellington Bomber
Photo of a sgt in the fuselage of a Wellington
Photo of an air Gunner in the tight space of a gun turret of a wellington bomber ( Training turret )
Photo from the outside of the Air Gunners ( Tail Turret )

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I like AIR!

That's very neat and a good way to keep his memory alive.

Thanks for sharing.

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"...await the right moment for one, and only one well-aimed shot" - Vassili Zaitsev

Your welcome

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I like AIR!

Very nice to keep the memory alive. Also nice photos.

HANDS IN THE POCKET.. That is a jacking..

And yet, it is a sad story in so many ways. A "19-year-old pilot..." Imagine how much flight/combat experience he had at that point.

Thanks for that story, TAG. I can't imagine how many times it was sorrowfully repeated at that point in the war.

Thank you for posting. They really were the greatest generation. There is a film called the Boys of Kelvin High. It cronicals the contribution of a single Manitoba High school who lost more than 50 students in Bomber Command.
Lest we forget.

Tks, Ill go check out that documentary!

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He had no combat experience, he had just gotten his Air Gunner badge wing, and he and his crew were on a night training flight
as part of 22nd OTU ( Operational Training unit )

Imagine the parents fear...they had three sons all in the Air Force, Ronald was the youngest and least experienced airman.
His older brothers, both officers survived the war. The frame I have ,had the newspaper clipping taped to the front of the frame.

I have to assume this is the photo his parents hung on the wall for years afterwards.

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The fact he was 19 or 20 and was a Sgt is impressive. I have a story about parents fearing the worst. But this thread, ain't about me.

LEADSLINGER, Please Feel free to share, I welcome it!!

In the meantime, I was able to track down photos of the rest of the crew of the plane that Sgt Air Gunner JACKSON died in.

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It's interesting that newspapers put their home addresses in both articles like it was no big deal.

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"...await the right moment for one, and only one well-aimed shot" - Vassili Zaitsev

Seemed like it common thing back then.

It interesting when you can use google street view to actually see the home where they lived.

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Dad was a W.A.G., and a flight sergeant to boot.
He flew in Avro mk. IV Lancasters (as most did) and was the radio operator. The midsection dome turret was his. He wasn't exactly enamored of the twin .303 m/g. Some tail guns on the later Lancasters were up-dated to .50 BMG near the end of the war.

W.A.G. = wireless air gunner.

Wellingtons were phased out as operations aircraft by late '43-early '44. Their slow speed made them easier targets.

I haven't seen The Boys of Kelvin, but Dad was one of them. Winnipeg was a real air force city. The CFL Blue Bombers were once known as "Winnipeg R.C.A.F."

He would have taken exception to the "Cdn soldier" moniker. He was first, always, and last, an air-man.

-D.S.

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"Ain't no half-way"
-S.R.V.

That's a great story, thanks.

BTY no disrespect was meant by the term solider, solider is a term to identify any military personnel.


"Soldier
A soldier is one who fights as part of a military. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. In other definition, soldiers are military personnel that participate in ground, sea, or air forces, commonly known as armies, navies, and air forces, respectively."

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I like AIR!