Hopefully Association members, and others reading the web-site pages, will find this snippet of Squadron history of interest.
In May 2008 Wing Commander Bell's son received an email via various sources from a gentleman in the United States
who had been researching his family two of whom had been PoWs in Germany during WWII. He had been in the National Archives
in College Park Maryland and found hidden away in the archive a dusty old box that contained 171 photographs of different PoWs.
Following research he was able to identify most of them as USAF officers and enlisted men who had been pilots and crew of
B-17s and B-24s that were shot down over Germany in early 1945. However there were three from Australia, one from New Zealand,
one from Poland, two from South africa, nine from Canada and ten from the Royal Air Force. He further established that all the
photographs were taken at the Luftwaffe interrogation center Dulag Luft (transit centre - Air Force,
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulag_luft) at Oberursel within hours or days of their capture.
Of further interest is that all of them, although sent to other Stalags, ended up at Stalag VIIA Moosburg
(see: http://www.moosburg.org/info/stalag/index.html) until their liberation by Patton's Third Army on 29th April 1945.
He was able to track down Wing Commander Bell from his service number and sent out an email into the world wide web to see
if anything came back.
Wing Commander Bell's son Gordon contacted the American researcher, Kurt Spence, and sent him some further information and to date Kurt
has been able to identify all but 8 of the 171 PoW photographs that he had found. Most were Americans but several were from the UK,
Canada, Australia and one from New Zealand. He has determined that about 40 of the airmen are still living and he has
talked to three of them so far. Each remembers distinctly the day that their photograph was taken. All have had different experiences.
He is trying to share each photo with the veterans or their families.
Gordon Bell says "I have to express my entire families thanks to Kurt for his tireless work and I will never forget the day I opened the
photograph and saw my father looking back at me from all those years ago at a time when he must have been facing a completely unknown
future but still with such determination and spirit in his eyes".
See http://www.teunispats.net/macr-12109.htm where the 171 PoW pictures are logged.