(Above) Courtesy the Trustees of the Royal Air Force Museum
The RAF Museum is launching a new blog for the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain based on the diary of a young pilot of 609 Squadron.
Launching on July 10 the blog is taken from the diary of pilot John Bisdee of No.609 (West Riding) Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force and recounts key events in the Battle of Britain including the pilot's combat sorties as well as his hopes and fears and life off duty.
Born in Weston-Super-Mare in 1915 Bisdee joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1937 and saw action over Dunkirk in June 1940. He remained with 609 Squadron throughout the Battle of Britain and was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and an OBE by the end of the war.
"First-hand accounts, written at the time of the Battle, are rare,"says Peter Elliott, the Senior Keeper for the Museum’s Department of Research and Information Services. "Bisdee's diary shows that life on the front line could be a mixture of intense action and off-duty relaxation."
Although most people tend to think of the Battle taking place over South East England, Bisdee's squadron, based in Hampshire, saw action over an area stretching from the outskirts of London to Bristol.
"There are some gaps," adds Peter, "but we have filled these with extracts from the daily Air Staff Operational Summaries, to give a picture of the overall campaign and we have also added relevant material from the Museum's collections, such as portraits of Bisdee and some of his colleagues and a number of the squadron's combat reports."
(Above) Courtesy the Trustees of the Royal Air Force Museum
The dates of July 10 to October 31 were selected as the blog’s publication dates as this period in 1940 was later laid down by the Royal Air Force for the allocation of Battle of Britain honours to units, and for aircrew to qualify for the Battle of Britain medal clasp.
Peter says the blog "gives an opportunity to see the Battle of Britain unfold through the eyes of a young man who went on to become one of the RAF's more successful fighter pilots.
"It provides us with an added insight into what it was really like to be one of ‘The Few" added Peter who thanked John Bisdee’s family for granting permission to share his account, as a young man, with the Museum’s online audience.
John Bisdee left the service in 1945 to resume his career with Unilever. He died in October 2000.
The blog will be hosted on the RAF Museum’s Battle of Britain Beacon website at www.battleofbritainbeacon.org/pilots-blog.
A Spitfire that flew with 609 Squadron during the Battle of Britain can be seen at RAF Museum, Hendon. Find out more about it in Culture24’s Curator’s Choice series.
Keep up to speed with the latest news about the Battle of Britain 70th anniversary at www.culture24.org.uk/battle-of-britain.
