Sunderland may hold a silky secret!

 

 

  

 

 

The wreck of Sunderland flying boat T9044, which sank off Pembroke Dock 72 years ago, may hold another secret - a silk dressing gown belonging to a pilot who flew the aircraft on operational patrols.

 

Christine Chapman, a recent visitor to the Pembroke Dock Sunderland Trust, recalls her father, Norman Chapman, saying that T9044 still had the box containing his dressing gown when the aircraft sank in November 1940.

 

The then Pilot Officer Chapman flew T9044 in the autumn of 1940, carrying out six Atlantic convoy patrols with his crew.

 

“My father said that his dressing gown, bought for his honeymoon in 1937, was still on board together with other personal items and that the aircraft was rammed by a fishing boat,” added Christine.

 

She was delighted to find a photograph and information on her father at the Flying Boat Centre which tells the story of T9044 and people who flew it.

 

Christine has a special affection for Pembroke Dock, both through her father’s long association with the RAF Station, and because she was baptised in the RAF Station Church (formerly the Dockyard Chapel) on Easter Sunday 1940.

 

During her visit she was taken to see the beautifully restored chapel by John Evans and Martin Cavaney of the Sunderland Trust.

 

“This has been a marvellous day,” said Christine. “My father and mother had very fond memories of PD. They returned here in the mid 1960s, not long before my father retired from the RAF, and in a local newsagents my father was welcomed by name. He never forgot that.”

 

Norman Chapman was a regular airman who joined up as an RAF Halton apprentice in 1928. He trained as a pilot in the mid 1930s and was posted to 210 Squadron at Pembroke Dock, flying biplane flying boats before joining an elite group of airmen who brought the Sunderland into service at PD. He retired as a Wing Commander, having been awarded the OBE and one of the first wartime Mention in Dispatches, in February 1940.

 

Captions:

Christine Chapman pictured with her baptismal certificate at the Dockyard Chapel where she was baptised in 1940. With her is John Evans of the Sunderland Trust. 

The baptismal certificate, signed by the RAF Chaplain.

PICTURE: Martin Cavaney Photography.