This is post No.100 on My Forgotten Hobby III

Sometimes things happen in my life that I forget about my forgotten hobby. Sometimes it’s the weather, but not today.

Post No.100 is not about a model airplane nor about a model ship because there is none available for this ship. 

Poto E pour le dossier (2)

Collection Alfred Kuhn

It’s about the story of a German torpedoboat, two sailors and their sons. This is another view of the T24.

Poto E pour le dossier (3)

Collection Alfred Kuhn

I have never seen these two photos on the Internet before. They are from Alfred Kuhn’s collection a radio operator on the T24.

I have been writing on the T24 story on another blog. It was about the story of Willi Küllertz who was a sailor in the engine room on the T24 when it was attacked by RCAF 404 Squadron Beaufighters.

24 Aug 44 strike photo

RCAF 404 Squadron archives

The T24 was the ship that sunk HMCS Athabaskan on April 29, 1944.

20190216_143856

Archives Canada

Before July 2009 I knew nothing about HMCS Athabaskan. Then in a family reunion my wife’s 80 year-old uncle told us he was aboard a destroyer named HMCS Athabaskan. He was writing a letter to his parents in the engine room when…

BOOM!

He did not tell that much about the sinking and how he was rescued by HMCS Haida. I found out why after. Most veterans that I have met since 2009 didn’t want to relive what they went through during the war.

So I got curious back in 2009 and I created Souvenirs de guerre a blog on WordPress to tell the story of HMCS Athabaskan and the sinking. 10 years later Willi Küllertz’son found that blog and commented. He wanted to tell his father’s story.

I featured it on Souvenirs de guerre.

https://mpierrela.wordpress.com/2019/02/02/souvenirs-de-guerre-dun-marin-allemand/

Wilhelm Küllertz

Collection Willi Küllertz

But there was so much information that his father’s story was then featured on a different blog in three languages: French, English and German…

https://willit24.home.blog/

All this with the intent that someone might one day contact Willi Küllertz’s son…

Well that day has just finally arrived and I have 48 more names to add to the T24 story.

T 24 1980 A

Collection Alfred Kuhn

Page 5117

Collection Alfred Kuhn

The RCAF’s No.404 “Buffalo” Squadron

Making history with building model airplanes

Mark Beckwith's avatarMaking-History

Bristol Beaufighter TF Mk.X, S/N NE425 of No. 404 Squadron RCAF at Davidstow Moor as it appeared in May, 1944 (note the absence of D-Day stripes dating it prior to 6 June, 1944)

The Royal Air Force Coastal Command Constant Endeavor

RAF Coastal Command

Over 13,000 men and women served in Coastal Command during the Second World War, and 5,866 lost their life through doing so. The Command lost 2,060 aircraft to all causes, but not without result; in action from the first day of hostilities until the last, it flew over one million flying hours in 240,000 operations, and destroyed 212 U-boats. Coastal Command sank 366 German transport vessels and damaged 134. A total of 10,663 persons were rescued by the Command, including 5,721 Allied crews, 277 enemy personnel, and 4,665 non-aircrews.

Their task was on the face of it, a relatively simple one and comprised both offensive and…

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