“Discovery is the one way of finding answers.”
Anonymous
Posted on the South African Military History Society’s web page, the photograph drew an enquiry from another Dutch researcher Adrian van Zandvoort, who was involved in a 1998 crash site investigation of a Second World War Lancaster and had traced the pilot’s sister in South Africa.
The pilot, Lt CW “Shorty” McGregor, one of five former King Edward VII School pupils who signed the photograph mounting, is one of 178 names on the school Cenotaph’s “Roll of Honour”. Apparently, the longest of any Commonwealth school, it includes four airmen involved in the “Battle of Britain”. The school, founded in 1902 had over 2 000 former pupils and master’s on active service.
Having provided additional information about McGregor, van Zandvoort’s subsequent request for help in tracing a South African “…who joined the RAF at the outbreak of war and then returned to Durban, South Africa in 1947”, involved many hours of information gathering, separating fact from fiction and generated enough intrigue for a novel.
Tracing the “South African’s” footsteps included contact with his squadron, a Canadian crew members family and sourcing a “Death Certificate” to enable access to his RAF Service Record. The collective information confirmed the “South African” had lived in Durban but was born in Sussex in 1900 and died in Bournemouth in 1982.
An unusually older Lancaster pilot who spent a few months in Berlin after being shot down in July 1943 was the subject of considerable suspicion by fellow “POW’s” when he arrived at Stalag III in early 1944 just before the “Great Escape”.
From “A Natural Curiosity”, the opening chapter of Jon Eagar's book. About the book.