During the 2020 pandemic lockdown I took advantage of the enforced idleness to rummage through a load of old boxes in the attic. In one I found this old postcard. It dates to 1940 and is a part of my family history. If you click on the image you will see an enlarged view so that you can read the jokes.
It is a cartoon drawn by my father in the summer of 1940 when he was serving with No.105 Squadron of the RAF. As you can see, my dad was a talented cartoonist. After the war he went to work for the Amalgamated Press and drew for some of the great children's comics of the time. He was always looking for a way to turn an honest bob and when on the squadron he earned some extra cash by drawing cartoons of the officers and men for them to send back home to their families. He also did several humorous cartoons that he then had printed so that he could sell lots of copies. This is one of those. Actually, the family did not have a copy of this one and we did not know it even existed until I saw it on Ebay one day and bought it.
The cartoon is packed with loads of gags, some funnier than others. Knowing my dad I would imagine that all the squadron men shown are portraits of actual men then with the squadron. The figure with the bomb in his lunch box looks like my father as he was back then.
This card can be dated quite precisely. Father volunteered the day after war was declared, 4 September 1939 but there were so many volunteers that he did not actually go off to start his training for some time. Having completed his training he was posted to No.105 Squadron, then part of the BEF in northern France. The squadron was equipped with Fairey Battle light bombers. This was a single-engined bomber that was designed for low level attacks in close co-operation with the army. You can read more about the Fairey Battle HERE.
As fate would decide, he never got there. He was still waiting for transport when the German Blitzkrieg began in May 1940. The squadron suffered heavy losses in the desperate fighting that led to the retreat to Dunkirk and with everything going on, my father never found transport to get him out to France - everyone was coming the other way.
As a result he did not joined No.105 Squadron until late in June 1940, when they were at RAF Honington. There the squadron was getting new aircrew to replace all those killed in France, plus a full complement of other personnel and equipment to replace losses. In August the squadron was re-equipped with Bristol Blenheims, a twin-engined medium bomber. You can read more about the Bristol Blenheim HERE.
This cartoon shows a single-engined bomber, so it cannot be a Blenheim. There is also a dinghy slung underneath the fuselage [the real one, of course, was inflatable and kept inside the bomber]. And one of the pilots has picked up a rather voluptuous mermaid. Undoubtedly this means that the squadron was flying operations over the sea at the time. So this must date to July 1940.
The squadron had a battle axe as its badge. My father always referred to the squadron as "Battle Axe Blenheims". One day in the 1990s he took me to St Clement Danes Church in London. This is the RAF Church and has a fine statue of Bomber Harris outside. My dad always admired Harris. he took me inside and pointed out to me a carving of the No.105 Battle Axe badge in the church. You can read more about No.105 Squadron HERE, more about St Clement Danes HERE and more about Bomber Harris HERE
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