550 Squadron Crew
F/O K F Sidwell DFC and Crew
F/O Sidwell and crew were posted to 550 Squadron from No.11 Base w.e.f. 28.9.44:
- F/O K F Sidwell DFC (P)
- Sgt J Allen (F/Eng)
- F/Sgt J W Hewitt (Nav)
- Sgt J L Banks (A/B)
- F/Sgt J F Chapman (W/Op)
- Sgt F W Woodley (MU/AG)
- Sgt D C Whitmarsh (R/AG)
The picture below is of F/O Sidwell and crew.
 |
F/O Sidwell and crew:
L-to-R: P/O Sidwell (P), F/Sgt Hewitt, Sgt Banks, Sgt Allen, F/Sgt Chapman, Sgt Woodley, Sgt Whitmarsh Thanks to Mark Simpson for making the photograph available |
F/O Sidwell and crew completed their tour with 550 Squadron with a final sortie to Nuremberg on 16-17/03/45.
F/O Sidwell was posted to 1651 CU on 25/03/45 and the award of a DFC was gazetted 20/07/45. Sadly on 30/10/45 F/Lt Sidwell went missing without trace in Lancaster NN813 of 1653 HCU while on a training flight.
Additional Photos
 |
Sgt J F Chapman (W/Op)
From Sgt Chapman records |
The following photos have been made available from the collections of Jack Allen and Helen Kentish.
-OutsideBillet.jpg) |
Sidwell Crew Outside Billet (from Jack Allen) |
-OutsideBillet-PhotoRear.jpg) |
Annotation on the rear of the photo |
From the caption on the crew photo it seems the F/O Sidwell and F/O Allen crew NCOs shared a billet. Looking at the information on the website the two crews were posted to 550 at roughly the same time around September 1944 and probably shared the accommodation until the Allen crew crashed on 13 February 1945.
.jpg) |
BQ-M2 / NG243
See: NG243 |
-PhotoRear.jpg) |
Annotation on the rear of the photo
As the annotation records the Sidwell crew carried out a lot of the ops in their tour in this aircraft |
Log Book
The following are pages from Sgt. John Frederick Chapman's log book. These have been made available to the 550 Squadron Museum from Sgt Chapman records.
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
 |
October 1944 |
|
November 1944 |
|
December 1944 |
|
January 1945 |
|
February 1945 |
|
March 1945 |