WARTIMES.ca

Greetings! I'm really excited to have come across this site! It appears to be a huge potential source of information on what I'm looking for! Cutting a very long story short, I've began a late research on my father, P/O John M. Riley just last year. Thanks to today's technology as well as other helpful sites, I have began making up for lost time and have discovered quite a few tidbits thus far. However, there is much more to learn about my dad's service as a RCAF Spitfire pilot, Squadron 417 in the No Africa campaign.

Your site seems to be particularly keen on supporting amatuer reserachers like myself. Essentially, I'm looking for anything I can that pertains to his RCAF service. Thank you in advance for your help. He was shot down twice over over Tunisia with the second time occuring on April 19, 1943. He was captured by the Germans. He was then transported to Sagan, Germany and was a POW in Salag Luft III (site of the Great Escape) until the end of the war when the Russians freed the camp. One of the gems I found with my research was this radio interview he gave one of the P.E.I stations. My guess it was late 80's - early 90's. I thought I would post the link here as I found it pretty fascinating and thought some of you would too! Heads-up, there is a bit of "dead-air" at the beginning of the recording and the end cuts off abruptly.

https://islandvoices.ca/islandora/objec ... 04acass001

Looking forward to being an active member!

John

Welcome to the site John. Let us know if you need help on anything specific or just to share your information with all.


Cheers and Welcome

You probably have all this info, but thought I would post it anyway.

19 Apr 1943 Operations Records Book for 417 Squadron RCAF. If you go to this page, you can also see ALL the missions he was on “before” he was shot down in this record.

If you can share the other Squadrons he was with, we can give you links to the Ops Record books of these also (unless you have everything, then use ignore me)

https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/ooci ... 15?r=0&s=3

This is the actual Spitfire aircraft record that he was flying on the 19 Apr 1943. This tells you the model number, and where it went from delivery to 417 Squadron, and also the factory it was built at which was Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory

Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory

https://supermariners.wordpress.com/the ... 1937-1940/

Thank you for the warm welcome...and the great information you furnished here on my dad. No, I had not seen this before. Thanks so much! Very appreciative! Cheers! John

Waterford853 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:17 pm

Thank you for the warm welcome...and the great information you furnished here on my dad. No, I had not seen this before. Thanks so much! Very appreciative! Cheers! John

You welcome John……if you’d like copies of ALL his flights with the Squadron, I can get them for you…….If you look at the page I posted, he had one flight in the Morning of the 19th, and you can see another flight on the 18th.

Let me know, I’ll find them all, then post them up for you. ALSO, if you know which other Squadron’s he may have flown for, again let me know and I’ll see what I can find.

I assume you have ordered his military records for LAC Ottawa. If not, again, let me know and I’ll give you the link to where you order these (it will take some time, waiting list is over a year long right now)

Cheers

John, I went ahead and found all his flights with 417 Squadron…….when you go thru this you’ll see they started with Hurricane’s and then eventually switch to Spitfires.

A few POW records

And I see that “possibly” he donated the photo’s on this website??

RCAF 417
The "City of Windsor" Combat Support Squadron

http://www.budslc.com/ww2/417/417.htm
Left to right: Flight Lieutenant Tom Percival, "Stocky" Edwards and P/O John Riley

Pilots on weekend pass in Tel Aviv. P/O John Riley 2nd. from right.