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Derek Hodgkinson
Air Chief Marshal Sir William Derek Hodgkinson, (27 December 1917 – 29 January 2010) was a senior Royal Air Force officer. As a bomber pilot in the Second World War, he was shot down and spent time in Stalag Luft III as "Big S", responsible for the security of the escape committee. Early life Born near Prestbury, Cheshire, and educated in Repton, Hodgkinson took a short service commission with the RAF in 1936, first flying the Avro Anson multi-role aircraft for RAF Coastal Command and then the American-built Hudson medium-level bomber with No. 220 Squadron RAF. Second World War When war was declared, Hodgkinson was responsible for patrolling the English Channel from Heligoland Bight to Stavanger, which included patrols during the Dunkirk evacuation. Hodgkinson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for shooting down a Heinkel HE115 float plane. He then became an instructor with the Operational Training Unit (OTU), where in 1942, as a squadron leader, Hodkinson was sele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prestbury, Cheshire
Prestbury is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England, about 1.5 miles (3 km) north of Macclesfield. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 3,324;Official census figures Retrieval Date: 10 June 2007 it increased slightly to 3,471 at the 2011 census. Alongside fellow "" villages, and |
Avro Anson
The Avro Anson is a British twin-engined, multi-role aircraft built by the aircraft manufacturer Avro. Large numbers of the type served in a variety of roles for the Royal Air Force (RAF), Fleet Air Arm (FAA), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and numerous other air forces before, during, and after the Second World War. Initially known as the ''Avro 652A'', the Anson was developed during the mid-1930s from the earlier Avro 652 airliner in response to a request for tenders issued by the British Air Ministry for a maritime reconnaissance aircraft. Having suitably impressed the Ministry, a single prototype was ordered, which conducted its maiden flight on 24 March 1935. Following an evaluation in which the Type 652A bettered the competing de Havilland DH.89, it was selected as the winner, leading to Air Ministry Specification 18/35 being written around the type and an initial order for 174 aircraft being ordered in July 1935. The Type 652A was promptly named after British Admira ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal_code_type = Postal code(s) , postal_code = 20001–21149, 22001–22769 , area_code_type = Area code(s) , area_code = 040 , registration_plate = , blank_name_sec1 = GRP (nominal) , blank_info_sec1 = €123 billion (2019) , blank1_name_sec1 = GRP per capita , blank1_info_sec1 = €67,000 (2019) , blank1_name_sec2 = HDI (2018) , blank1_info_sec2 = 0.976 · 1st of 16 , iso_code = DE-HH , blank_name_sec2 = NUTS Region , blank_info_sec2 = DE6 , website = , footnotes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Great Escape (film)
''The Great Escape'' is a 1963 American war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ... adventure film starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough and featuring James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer, David McCallum, Karl-Otto Alberty, Gordon Jackson (actor), Gordon Jackson, John Leyton and Angus Lennie. It was filmed in Panavision, and its musical score was composed by Elmer Bernstein. The film is based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 non-fiction The Great Escape (book), book of the same name, a firsthand account of Stalag Luft III#The "Great Escape" (1944), the mass escape by British Commonwealth prisoners of war from German POW camp Stalag Luft III in Sagan (now Żagań, Poland), in the Nazi Germany province of Lower Sil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consisting of the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. With about 570,000 inhabitants, the Hanseatic city is the 11th largest city of Germany and the second largest city in Northern Germany after Hamburg. Bremen is the largest city on the River Weser, the longest river flowing entirely in Germany, lying some upstream from its mouth into the North Sea, and is surrounded by the state of Lower Saxony. A commercial and industrial city, Bremen is, together with Oldenburg and Bremerhaven, part of the Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region, with 2.5 million people. Bremen is contiguous with the Lower Saxon towns of Delmenhorst, Stuhr, Achim, Weyhe, Schwanewede and Lilienthal. There is an exclave of Bremen in Bremerhaven, the "Citybremian Overseas Port ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bomber Harris
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press and often within the RAF as "Butch" Harris, was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) RAF Bomber Command during the height of the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Born in Gloucestershire, Harris emigrated to Rhodesia in 1910, aged 17. He joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment at the outbreak of the First World War and saw action in South Africa and South West Africa. In 1915, Harris returned to England to fight in the European theatre of the war. He joined the Royal Flying Corps, with which he remained until the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. Harris remained in the Air Force through the 1920s and 1930s, serving in India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Harris took command of No. 5 Group ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squadron Leader
Squadron leader (Sqn Ldr in the RAF ; SQNLDR in the RAAF and RNZAF; formerly sometimes S/L in all services) is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is also sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries which have a non-English air force-specific rank structure. An air force squadron leader ranks above flight lieutenant and immediately below wing commander and it is the most junior of the senior officer ranks. The air force rank of squadron leader has a NATO ranking code of OF-3, equivalent to a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Navy or a major in the British Army or the Royal Marines. The equivalent rank in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Women's Royal Air Force (until 1968) and Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service (until 1980) was "squadron officer". Squadron leader has also been used as a cavalry command appointment (UK) and rank (France) since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operational Training Unit
Royal Air Force Operational Training Units (OTUs) were training units that prepared aircrew for operations on a particular type or types of aircraft or roles. OTUs ; No. 1 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit RAF (1 OTU): The Unit was formed in 1940 as part of RAF Coastal Command at RAF Silloth for training aircrew on coastal command patrol aircraft types until it was disbanded on 19 October 1943.Sturtivant 2007, pp. 198-206 ;No. 2 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit RAF (2 OTU): 2 OTU was formed in 1940 as part of Coastal Command at RAF Catfoss for training aircrew on coastal command twin-engined fighter and strike aircraft types until it was disbanded 15 February 1944. ;No. 3 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit RAF (3 OTU): 3 OTU was formed in 1940 as part of Coastal Command at RAF Catfoss for training aircrew on coastal command aircraft types including the Avro Anson and Bristol Beaufighter, until it was disbanded 4 January 1944. ; No. 4 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunkirk Evacuation
The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week Battle of France. In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called this "a colossal military disaster", saying "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. In his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a "miracle of deliverance". After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, France and the British Empire declared war on Germany and imposed an economic blockade. The British Expeditionary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stavanger
Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the administrative center of Rogaland county. The municipality is the fourth most populous in Norway. Located on the Stavanger Peninsula in southwest Norway, Stavanger counts its official founding year as 1125, the year the Stavanger Cathedral was completed. Stavanger's core is to a large degree 18th- and 19th-century wooden houses that are protected and considered part of the city's cultural heritage. This has caused the town center and inner city to retain a small-town character with an unusually high ratio of detached houses, and has contributed significantly to spreading the city's population growth to outlying parts of Greater Stavanger. The city's population rapidly grew in the late 20th century due to its oil industry. Stavanger is known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heligoland Bight
The Heligoland Bight, also known as Helgoland Bight, (german: Helgoländer Bucht) is a bay which forms the southern part of the German Bight, itself a bay of the North Sea, located at the mouth of the Elbe river. The Heligoland Bight extends from the mouth of the Elbe to the islands of Heligoland and lies between the East Frisian island of Wangerooge and the North Frisian peninsula of Eiderstedt. Named after Heligoland, it was the location of World War I naval battles in 1914 and 1917. In 1939 it also had a World War II aerial battle named after it. In the Heligoland Basin (''Helgoländer Becken''), a basin lying directly southwest of Heligoland, the bight is up to deep. One of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, from Hamburg and the mouth of the Elbe to the Straits of Dover and the English Channel, runs through the Heligoland Bight. The area also includes nature reserves such as the ''Heligoland Felssockel'' and the protected Wadden Sea, in which the Wadden Sea Nat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kanaal, "The Channel"; german: Ärmelkanal, "Sleeve Channel" ( French: ''la Manche;'' also called the British Channel or simply the Channel) is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busiest shipping area in the world. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to at its narrowest in the Strait of Dover."English Channel". ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', 2004. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some . The Channel was a key factor in Britain becoming a naval superpower and has been utilised by Britain as a natural def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
