Fondo RC0355 - Gordon Griffith fonds

The fonds consists of Griffith’s in-flight navigator’s reports of bombing raids over German targets, detailing height, speed, temperature, instrument checks, unusual incidents, bomb release time, course flown, special instructions, and observations, and corresponding course maps. Fifty-two of the maps included in this fonds are World War II Bomber Charts, namely Topographical Maps, Lattice Topographical Maps, Radar Plotting Charts, Plotting Series Maps, Aeronautical Maps, and Canadian Air Navigation Charts. There are also three notebooks.

The fonds also contains an air force uniform (Pilot Officer jacket, trousers, felt “long johns,” two Royal Air Force “blue shirts.”); Griffith’s shoulder boards and air force and officer hats; 5 navigation protractors (3 of which are handmade); various patch badges including air force, army and naval items; and sample plexiglass from an aircraft window; a sample of airframe; field wound dressing (unused); and a sewing kit, for buttons, badges, and repairs.

There is also biographical information about Griffith and his crew (including the correspondence to Kennedy from Bath and an article from McLean's Magazine, September 2009 describing Operation Gisela); Leave Guide for London (a YMCA brochure), an issue of Time and Tide: Independent Non-Party dated 14 April 1945; 7 annotated photographs of the Halifax III and its crew, a Crew Roster for the 76th Squadron RAF for the week ending 22 December 1944.