Category: Access and Learning

Exodus Chapter 16, v2-4, NIV:

‘In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’ Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you..”’

This portion of the ancient story of the Israelites tells of a nation saved from starvation by a raining down of supernatural food from the sky – called Manna – which was an experience that the Dutch nation could relate to at a time when their situation was equally desperate. Exactly eighty years ago this week, beginning on 29 April and extending to 8 May 1945, RAF Bomber Command undertook Operation Manna.

Following a seemingly unending campaign of night bombing over Germany, this unusual task suggested to the bomber crews that the war might end any day soon. It was a fortnight of daily low-level flights daytime flights flown over German-occupied areas of the western Netherlands by crews of Lancasters bombers, used to flying at high-level and in darkness. This time, no bombs but sacks of food dropped to feed the malnourished population below. It was the first humanitarian aid mission undertaken buy the Royal Air Force and it left an indelible memory shared between the saved Dutch citizens and the crews who flew to their rescue. Held dear by those who experienced it, memories of Manna are treasured by their descendants today.

The Dutch had already suffered five years of occupation by Germany and the requisition of much of its food resources, which had worsened in the months since D-Day when Western Holland suffered further with the effects of abandonment by an occupying army on the defence and only interested in feeding itself. An urgent solution to a population who had eaten the remaining food and were turning to sugar beet and inedible tulip bulbs to fill themselves, was needed.

The Dutch Government in exile appealed to the Allies for immediate help. Codenamed Manna, to reflect the story of the Israelites led by Moses in the wilderness and being fed supernaturally with manna – bread from heaven – the urgently needed food supplies dropped from the air, were vital in saving some lives who were very close to starvation, after many more sick and elderly people had already died from malnourishment.

A series of demanding food bombing raids followed over successive days, but happily and enthusiastically carried out by RAF crews, who knew that for once in this war, they were not destroying targets but directly saving the lives of their allies. Even in this final fortnight of the war in Europe, it didn’t mean the mission was simple – the enemy was still occupying the countryside where the bomber aircraft would fly over and the airfields designated for the food drops were still challenging targets to approach and deliver, undamaged, the vital food. Enemy infantry did sometimes still take shots at the low-flying aircraft, even if with few harmful consequences as the aircraft were so low, that shooting would be inaccurate.

© RAF Museum, X007/6957/003, Manna bomber approaching the coast of Holland.

An excellent full account of the operation, the reasons for it and its planning and execution, can be enjoyed in another RAF Museum blog, which I urge you to read and so I will not attempt to reproduce the story here.

Instead, please see:
https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/operation-manna-29th-april-to-8th-may-1945/

The significant milestone of eighty years is a great opportunity to visit some first-hand accounts of a selection of RAF personnel who carried out these lifesaving missions and whose records, log books and unpublished accounts are held in our archive. We take a closer look here.

In his unpublished squadron history, ‘We Fly By Marking, A History of No 582 Squadron RAF’, Albert Butterworth recalled:

‘Operation Manna … began during the day on April 29th 1945 and lasted until May 8th. During these ten days, 145 Mosquitoes and 300 Lancasters made 3,156 flights, dropping 6685 tons of food to the starving Dutch citizens.

The hundreds of objects falling from the Lancasters, flying as low as 500ft (155m) and sometimes down to 300ft (91m), at 160mph (260kmh), were not bombs but bags of food, tins of butter, meat and cheese It was food which saved the lives of thousands of men, women and children, who for months had lived on a diet of boiled tulip bulbs, nettle soup and sliced beets, and were now at the end of their strength.

In April 1945 the southern part of Holland had already been liberated by advancing allied troops after five years of German occupation, but north-western areas, Rotterdam, the Hague, Amsterdam were still in the hands of the Germans. Towards the end of 1944 after the Gestapo had opened dyke sluices, putting thousands of acres of fertile land under water, they demanded that the populace should surrender all food supplies to feed their troops. Dutch railwaymen went on strike in protest, which meant no food could be distributed.

Eyewitnesses told of seeing people collapse on the street from hunger, while children were crying from starvation and exhaustion on doorsteps. Thousands of city dwellers trooped miles into the countryside, carrying pitiful bundles of table linen and their last clothes supplies to try to barter with farmers for potatoes, bread and milk.

The RAF began planning in February 1945, when a Lancaster of 115 squadron (HK696) was sent to Netheravon to help in formulating a suitable dropping technique. Later, panniers were made, of which five could fit in a Lancaster’s bomb-bay, with each pannier holding 70 sacks, each containing 25lb (11kg), of tinned meat, flour, dried milk, chocolate, tea and sugar, etc, Hights were arranged at between 200 and 500 ft (60 to 152m), with the pilot selecting half-flap, and flying at between 110 and 120 knots (220 km/h).

Dropping points were arranged to be marked by the Dutch authorities, and the leading aircraft was to mark the spot with a spot fire. No 115 squadron made the initial drop, and Lancasters took off from Witchford, Fiskerton and Stradishall, In all, seventeen Lancaster squadrons took part, undoubtedly averting s tragedy of enormous proportions.

Forty years later, at 1pm, on 20th April 1985, this episode was remembered with thanksgiving ceremonies in the Netherlands during a general remembrance of VE Day throughout Europe.’
Sergeant RS Fettes left his record of the event in no other form than his aircrew logbook, which although not recording any description or impressions of the event, as logbooks tend to record the bare facts of flights, the raw figures give a clear idea of the commitment made by the crews.

Typical of this is the following entry for Monday 30 April 1945, the second day of Manna, which states:
30.4.45 / Time – 1545 / Lancaster – LM132 “I” / Pilot – Pilot Officer McKenzie / Duty – Mid-Upper Gunner / Remarks, Ops. Manna, Food / Flying Times, Day – 3 hrs 15 mins

Then again on Tuesday 1 May:
1.5.45 / Time – 1429 / Lancaster – NG366 “F” / Pilot – Pilot Officer McKenzie / Duty – Mid-Upper Gunner / Remarks – Ops. Manna. Food. / Flying Times, Day – 3 hrs 45 mins

And for Wednesday:
2.5.45 / Time – 1224 / Lancaster – NG366 “F” / Pilot – Pilot Officer McKenzie / Duty – Mid-Upper Gunner / Remarks – Ops. Manna. Food. / Flying Times, Day – 3 hrs 5 mins

Then Thursday:
3.5.45 / Time – 1141 / Lancaster – RA566 “K” / Pilot – Pilot Officer McKenzie / Duty – Mid-Upper Gunner / Remarks – Ops. Manna. Food. / Flying Times, Day – 3 hrs 10 mins

Then following a break in his flying schedule, Fettes’ final Manna entry is on Monday 7 May:
7.5.45 / Time – 1315 / Lancaster – (serial unrecorded) “P” / Pilot – Pilot Officer McKenzie / Duty – Mid-Upper Gunner / Remarks – Ops. Manna. Food. / Flying Times, Day – 3 hrs 40 mins

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Lancaster© Author

© RAF Museum, B3484; Air gunner’s flying log book of Sgt R.S Fettes, 1942-1943

What stands out here is the consistent flight time of between three and four hours, the necessity to do this in the day so that the food can be seen and retrieved by the Dutch officials, (in contrast to the many night raids the crew would have been familiar with), and the pattern of starting out times tending to be in the afternoon. The fiddly routine of loading the food packages into the bomb bay of the aircraft, took the best part of the morning, hence always going over in the afternoon.

X007/6957/002 Food sacks loaded into the bomb bay of a Lancaster.

The log book of Bomb Aimer, Flight Sergeant R Davies tells a similar story, this time revealing the locations of the drops, (Air Bomber’s flying log book of FS R Davies, 2 December 1943-28 June 1945):

29.4.45 / Time – 1310 / Lancaster – U / Pilot – Flying Officer Cowley / Duty – Air Bomber / Remarks, Ops. 19 Rotterdam (supply dropping) / Flying Times, Day – 2 hrs 35 mins

1.5.45 / Time – 1345 / Lancaster – Q / Pilot – Flying Officer Cowley / Duty – Air Bomber / Remarks, Hague (supply dropping) / Flying Times, Day – 2 hrs 30 mins

3.5.45 / Time – 1130 / Lancaster – W / Pilot – Flying Officer Cowley / Duty – Air Bomber / Remarks, Hague (supply dropping) / Flying Times, Day – 2 hrs 10 mins

4.5.45 / Time – 1135 / Lancaster – X / Pilot – Flying Officer Cowley / Duty – Air Bomber / Remarks, Hague (supply dropping) / Flying Times, Day – 2 hrs 35 mins

© RAF Museum, X005-0931/001; Air Bomber’s flying log book of FS R. Davies,
2 December 1943-28 June 1945

In his account of 550 Squadron, Through Fire We Conquer, Jack Kendall relates one pilot’s experience:
‘Pilot John Carsons from 550 Sqn recorded his impressions of one of these ops. “We crossed the coast at the island of Overflakkee and flew east. We were constantly greeted by countless people waving at us enthusiastically. Next to a smallish village we dropped our Manna and self written leaflets and after some sightseeing we turned northwest and returned to North Killingholme.” On 7th May, the day before the war ended 550 Sqn were over Holland again this time dropping many tons of food to the people of Rotterdam.”’

The urgent need for Operation Manna and its life saving potential had called for a rapid response at scale, and the crews of Bomber Command responded to that as professionally as in their bombing missions, but in doing so had invested themselves in a mission of mercy and selflessness that would remain in their memories for the rest of their lives.

Below is a link to some Manna artefacts and images that can be viewed on our online inventory of selected items from Royal Air Force Museum Collections.

Ever wondered what it might be like to be a King and to know how to fly in the Royal Air Force? Both our current King Charles III and his son, the Prince of Wales (the next in line to the throne) are fully qualified RAF pilots. Here at the RAF Museum London, you can see three of the aircraft they have flown!

Jet Provosts were designed to enable junior pilots who had already qualified on propeller driven aeroplanes, to get their first experiences flying jet powered aeroplanes. Trainee pilots would then go on to fly something more powerful. In 1971 when our red and white Jet Provost T5A XW323 /9166M was new, it was based at the airfield of the officer training college at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire. It was selected for use for the pilot training of Flt Lt The Prince of Wales – now HM The King. His period of training was codenamed ‘Exercise Golden Eagle’. Two Jet Provosts were held at readiness for use by the Prince during his five-month course. He flew just over 92 hours in these, 23 ½ of them solo. Prince Charles received his pilot badge or ‘wings’ from the Chief of the Air Staff, on 20 August 1971 at his passing out parade, after completing over 140 hours of flight training. You can see our Jet Provost in Hangars 3 and 4.

Prince William – today’s Prince of Wales – trained at RAF Shawbury before joining his operational Search and Rescue Force squadron as a pilot in 2010. Flt Lt Wales, as he was known, was based at RAF Valley on the island of Anglesey. He eventually served as a captain (senior pilot and mission leader).  During his three years of Search and Rescue duties he undertook 156 rescue operations, resulting in 149 people being rescued and completed over 1,300 flying hours. One of the big yellow Sea King HAR3 helicopters that he flew is in Hangar 1 at the Museum. Of the four crew, Prince William was the captain and working for him were his co-pilot, the radar operator and the winchman. In addition the helicopter could carry a further 18 passengers seated in the rear cabin or some stretchers – a lot of lives could be saved.

Our plush red and blue Westland Wessex HCC4 XV 732 helicopter is not in any way the ordinary type – which normally appeared in a drab camouflage green. It was manufactured in 1969 and as a brand-new example was selected to join the then Queen’s Flight of the RAF. This meant its destiny was to fly members of the Royal Family – or to be flown by members of the same Family! Also, to fly kings, queens, princes and princesses, presidents and prime ministers of this country and many others. One of its first duties was to fly HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to the investiture ceremony of her grandson, the Prince of Wales (today’s HM King Charles), at Caernarvon Castle in North Wales. Of all the Royal Family, she really liked flying in this helicopter as it was very handy to get to engagements and events speedily. A special footstool was made for her, so that she could rest her legs whilst flying – still inside the luxury carpeted cabin today. With its VIP interior, carpets, seats, soundproofing, steps, XV 732 is properly comfortable! There is even a storage cabinet for royal picnics and racks for plates and cups. Our Wessex – which you can see in Hangars 3 and 4 – has carried most members of the Royal Family and has been flown by HRH Prince Phillip and also by today’s HM King Charles.

From aviation pioneers searching for ways to fly faster, further and higher, to Battle of Britain Pilots scrambling to defend enemy attacks, the need for resilience in the Royal Air Force is nothing new. Throughout its distinguished history the RAF, and its people, have faced many challenges and weathered many storms; be these huge world events or personal struggles. As a Museum we collect and tell these stories of resilience, but over the past 18 months we ourselves have had to adapt and be resilient in order to continue to keep sharing the RAF story. This blog will explore the Museum, and our community’s, successes and challenges as we navigated through the turbulent past eighteen months.

Along with the rest of the country the Museum had to close in March 2020. Staff all speedily downloaded Microsoft Teams and Zoom, packed up paperwork to get on with at home and cleared food out of office fridges that would go out of date over, what we thought would be, the six weeks we were away from the Museum. The next few months had us draw on all of our resilience; pushing to continue projects that we could and making difficult decisions about what had to be cancelled or postponed. The Access and Learning and Public Events teams run some of the Museum’s most public-facing programmes. For both teams, sharing the story of the RAF is nearly entirely dependent on interacting with large groups and they have tackled having to completely rethink the way they engage with our audience.

The key to the Museum’s learning programme has always been amazing face to face interaction with schools. Being immersed in history by talking to an Air Raid Warden, and getting hands on with launching rockets makes a trip to the Museum a unique experience for students who get to see and take part in activities that cannot be replicated within their own classrooms. When the pandemic hit our team went from over 23,000 children taking part in onsite sessions and more than 35,000 formal learners the previous year to no school visits. We had to be resilient and change our offer quickly!

Access and Learning Officer Toni Donston explains the changes that the Access and Learning team made to ensure we were able to continue to engage with schools during the pandemic.
‘Over the last year or so the Access and Learning team has had to adapt several times to meet the needs of the time. Initially we focused on creating resources for families which could be accessed online. We then developed an online programme which schools could engage with from the safety of the classroom. Next, our onsite workshops programme had to be streamlined to ensure it was Covid safe.
We have had to regularly adapt and revise how we work so that we have been able to continue to engage with schools during these difficult times. It seems to have worked as we are now getting more and more bookings for onsite workshops!’

The team effectively moved from creating online resources and developing online sessions for classes to enjoy to modifying onsite sessions now that schools are more comfortable coming out of the classroom for a trip. ‘Streamed to your school’ online sessions allowed face to face engagement with a member of the team and adapted some of our most popular sessions to be enjoyed virtually in a classroom setting. Our main mission is to make sure that masks, distancing and smaller groups (and a whole lot of extra cleaning!) don’t get in the way of learning, and even more importantly, making learning fun.

The Museum’s Events team has faced similar challenges due to the pandemic. They had to contend with huge events cancelled, planning shelved, and trying to figure out a whole new way of engaging with our audience in a world where we could no longer gather together. Ella Hewitt, Public Events Manager explains how her team bounced back from the initial disappointment of cancelled events and shifted focus to not what they couldn’t do but what they could achieve in new and innovative ways.

‘In March 2020 we just had to cancel everything that we had spent months planning at both our sites, but the despair only lasted a few weeks. We quickly realised that there was plenty of opportunities to entertain our audiences online. Partnerships were forged in the chaos of the first few weeks that have had a brilliant – and continued – legacy. Our virtual VE Day 75 Festival and VJ75 events with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, National Army Museum and Commonwealth War Graves Commission are perhaps some of my favourite events of all time. They shared meaningful stories of our Armed Forces in a meaningful and emotive way – putting them in the context of all three services and the way we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.’

Ella goes on to talk about how the events programme has helped the Museum be resilient during this difficult financial time through their fundraising efforts – something which was made possible through digital interaction with our audience.

‘We have had to learn to adapt to new ways of working and new ways of running events. Our programmes will never look like they did before 2020, but that isn’t a bad thing. The virtual events attract thousands of new people to our audiences and interact with our supporters in a really meaningful way. The Hurricane 80K, Spitfire 10K and Lancaster Challenge have raised over £200,000 combined through entries and donations. That is a really tangible and lasting legacy from a really challenging year. I think the success highlights the resilience of our teams and the ability for us to forge new ways of producing and delivering events.’

Our Museum has needed to channel all our resilience in order to survive and thrive during the pandemic and so have the Colindale community that our London site is a part of. Some areas in Colindale are within the 10% most deprived nationally for employment and income. We know that the effects of the pandemic have hit our most deprived communities hardest, so local organisations have played a huge role in keeping the community resilient. One organisation at the heart of our local community is the Colindale Communities Trust (CCT), a charity committed to developing sustainable services and projects that improve the economic and social wellbeing of people who live in and around Colindale. Their Community Development Manager Jan Brennan explains some of the challenges they faced during the pandemic as well as the importance of local partnerships.

‘Ours is very much a face to face industry. Moving into lockdown was a difficult time for our residents, we also had to cope with a move to a new building. We have used social media to support local people, with information and details of services available for help. In between periods of lockdown we engaged local people offering them a safe space to gain new skills to help them to navigate the new world of online services. Local providers working together has enabled the local community to cope in these very difficult times.’

The Museum contributed to helping our local community during these unprecedented times, often by partnering with groups like CCT. Over Christmas we teamed up with CCT, Home Start Barnet and FUSE Youth Club to produce and deliver one hundred parcels of games and activities to local children, doing our small bit to spread some festive cheer. A local foodbank used space at the Museum for packing food parcels and as a base from where they could distribute these parcels to local people in need of support. Through these initiatives we aimed to not only help local residents remain resilient but to support local organisations so they could continue their brilliant work during, and post, pandemic.

The RAF, our Museum and our community have proven their resilience – never more so than over the last 18 months. As we move into Summer 2021 it’s worthwhile reflecting on where we were last year. Summer 2020 saw staff who usually work back of house – development, collections, HR and finance to name a few, donning our staff t-shirts and visors to support our front of house team to keep things safe and running smoothly for our visitors. This gave a lot of staff a new understanding of how the Museum runs on a day to day basis and presented us with the invaluable opportunity to interact with our visitors at a time when social interactions were at an all-time low for most of us! The skills learnt during this time, along with becoming whizzes at virtual meetings (you’re on mute!) and being able to drown out the noise of family and housemates whilst trying to work, have bettered us as a Museum team. Our Museum and local community have not only showed our resilience but built upon it, making us faster, stronger and able to reach audiences from further than ever before.

We want to ensure that everyone who visits our Museum is comfortable, safe and has their individual needs recognised and supported. This is particularly important when thinking about our older community. This blog will highlight the engagement and outreach work with our older community over the past year. There are some really exciting projects to explore, both bringing new groups to the Museum to delve into our collection and taking the RAF story out and about within the local area.

One way that we’ve been working to better support a sector of our older community, which benefits all visitors, is by making our Museum more dementia friendly. Staff from the Access and Learning team trained as Dementia Friends Champions by the Alzheimer’s Society and started to run sessions at the Museum’s London site to create dementia friends amongst our staff. A Dementia Friend is simply somebody that learns about dementia so they can help their community. With the new circumstances we found ourselves in due to Covid-19 and many staff working from home it seemed the perfect opportunity to widen our programme and get both staff from the Cosford site and our volunteer team involved. For the past few months we’ve been running virtual Dementia Friends Information Sessions for our staff and volunteers virtually. These sessions increase awareness of dementia, aim to make us more understanding and encourage everyone to pledge to make a dementia friendly action. Making our Museum part of a dementia friendly community is just one of the things we’ve been up to over the past year to engage and support our older community.

Last year saw us working with Age UK Barnet on a series of workshops for their Men’s Group. It was a brilliant opportunity and we were pleased to be chosen as a venue that Age UK were confident the group would feel comfortable within and enjoy exploring. We ran six fortnightly session which explored a varied and diverse range of topics drawing on the expertise of different members of the Access and Learning team. One of the team delivered a talk on the topic of Medical Evacuation, another performed ‘Pilots of the Caribbean’, a dramatic performance focusing on African and Caribbean personnel within the RAF. The group also had an unusual biomimicry tour of some of our aircraft; they learnt more about how aircraft design mimics features found in nature to help them fly faster, evade radar and even how they protect themselves from sun damage. This was a session adapted from an interactive family talk showing that learning interesting aircraft facts have no upper or lower age limit!

As well as listening to talks and tours the Age UK group also had the opportunity to be actively involved in consultation for a new exhibition. They were asked about a selection of ten artworks which were potentially going to be featured in a new Battle of Britain Art exhibition and asked to both vote for their favourite and write their own community captions. Along with other groups, such as Art for Wellbeing learners and the Grahame Park Drop-in Group, Age UK Barnet Men’s Group were shown images of the artwork and gave their initial opinions on style, content and emotional impact.

It was amazing to get to know the gentlemen from Age UK and have the opportunity to bring them to the Museum site and explore wide ranging topics over a number of weeks. Getting groups out and about and physically into the Museum isn’t always possible. Thinking about how to engage our older community who can’t get to the Museum gave us a wonderful opportunity to develop workshops for our local North London care homes, to share the RAF story with those people who are interested and have wonderful stories to tell, but in a space that is safe and comfortable for them.

The focus of these sessions for care homes was the amazingly unique history of aviation that revolves around our London site. Taking place normally in entertainment rooms where residents usually indulge in art activities and music sessions, we whizz groups through the fascinating history of the London Aerodrome and RAF Hendon. To make it as engaging as possible talks included archive images and photos from Hendon’s past as well as film footage going back as far as the 1930s of Hendon Pageants from times gone by. Probably the highlight of the sessions is a chance for residents to handle, or for the adventurous don and strut the catwalk in, uniforms from our handling collection. Having a varied approach within these sessions including a tactile experience is so important and ensures that everyone, with a range of different interests and needs, can participate and enjoy our collection in different ways.

It’s important to remember that working with our older community isn’t all about history and looking back, but learning new skills and looking to the future. Our future programming for people over 60 will be focusing on combining using our collection in new and inventive ways to support new skills and learning, changing perceptions of both the RAF and people’s own abilities and ultimately the joy of exploration and discovery.

As a museum sitting in the heart of Colindale we love working and spending time with our local community and those that live on our doorstep. As we all know, things are very different at the moment, meaning we aren’t able to get out and about and see our local community or welcome them into the Museum, as we usually would.

In this series of blog posts we’ll be reminiscing over the last year of the Museum’s community engagement whilst we plan for time when we can all be together again! This blog will focus on activities the Museum has been involved in with local families and children.
One of the highlights of the last year was hosting families from Home Start Barnet at the Museum for Toddler Takeover Day. The day involved the toddlers of Colindale taking on museum jobs and becoming mini curators, conservators and shop staff. Polishing our mini planes, using a pricing gun and whizzing objects around the exhibition using a trolley certainly livened up a morning in Hangar 1.

If we thought the group were swift transporting objects around the Museum that was nothing compared to the speed we saw at the Home Start sports day which took place on the green space in the middle of the Museum site. After a rain delay and a relocation indoors the children, and some brave parents, competed in races and games worthy of an RAF assault course! Home Start’s family groups usually meet in the local community centre on Grahame Park but it’s amazing to not only go out to work with the group but welcome them and showcase the Museum as a social hub for local families.

Another local group that meet a stone’s throw from the Museum on Grahame Park is FUSE youth club who we’ve also been working with over the last year. FUSE’s mantra ‘Working with young people living on Estates to show them a world outside of it’ inspired sessions at the Museum focusing on job roles and BAME history. The young people watched a performance of ‘Pilots of the Caribbean’ which highlights the role of African and Caribbean people throughout RAF history and today. The group were encouraged to ask questions and also explore the Museum using our BAME history trail. Another session used RAF uniforms to talk about different roles and skills needed within not only the air force but in other jobs.

Speaking of uniforms, hats were the order of the day when we tried on and created our own RAF hats at Burnt Oak Library. Children explored the different types of hats used in the RAF and designed their own stylish paper hats to take home with them. Getting out and about in local libraries is a brilliant way of meeting new families who haven’t visited the Museum before as well as getting to see some familiar faces who love getting stuck into different activities.

We also worked with Barnet Libraries at East Finchley Library to trial a session where families got to get hands on with some objects from our handling collection and write their own fantasy labels. It was great fun hearing the weird, wonderful and wacky uses the children came up with for each object. We had a ring compass masquerading as a bracelet for a bunny and a Gosport Tube which they decided was a stethoscope. The best part of this activity was that the children were actually more fascinated with the original uses of the objects than their own ideas; perhaps we have some budding Museum professionals and historians amongst the children of Barnet.

Getting children, families and young people involved with the Museum and sharing the RAF story with them is one of the most important aspects of our outreach and engagement work. We can’t wait to get back to normal and work with all our amazing local families and community partners. For more information about previous community engagement work go to our Community Events page.

On 25 July 1909, it was inventor, industrialist and pioneer Louis Blériot who demonstrated what the future of the aeroplane would be. Blériot was already remarkable in that at the turn of the century he had invented the world’s first practical car headlamp which he now sold to the major French car manufacturers. He then turned his attention to aviation and over the course of the intervening years, designed and tested a series of aeroplanes, the first unsuccessful but ultimately resulting in the world’s first successful monoplane design, the Blériot VI, in 1907. His Blériot VIII of the following year was the first design to complement a hand-held control column with foot operated rudder bar: flying control elements that are standard in present-day aeroplanes. Ultimately, he decided to concentrate on his most successful: the Blériot XI.

The construction of the Blériot XI is a lesson in 1909 simplicity and efficiency. Fuselage frames were constructed from hardwoods such as ash and poplar that could bear the weight of components like the engine, propeller and pilot! Interestingly, this same wood was used in the framework of the wings. The fuselage was a simple steel wire-braced wooden box girder. Only the forward half was enclosed by rubberized waterproof fabric to provide protection against wind and weather.

To provide power Blériot had teamed up with motorbike manufacturer Alessandro Anzani who had supplied the three-cylinder partial radial engine that provided enough power for minimal weight. He had in turn partnered with Lucien Chauvière who provided finely tuned laminated walnut propellers for this engine, which were attached directly to the crankshaft.

The engine and propeller were positioned at the front of the design: the ideal position for optimum traction through the air. Wings were thin for speed, deeply arched and broad from front to back to maximise on the Bernoulli characteristic to provide lift. They were set at a dihedral (curved upwards) to enable stability and easy recovery if buffeted by side-wind. They had no aileron flaps, but in common with other designs of the time had warping wing tips pulled by steel control wires that were given leverage by a tubular pylon under the fuselage. The ingenious main wheel suspension was mounted on a stocky wooden frame below the engine, the tubular steel axle bar attached to two sliding tubular sleeves that ‘telescoped’ into corresponding tubes, substantial rubber bungees stretched between them to take the impact. Strong spoked wheels freely swiveled (like supermarket trolleys) to cope with landings. The rudder and elevators were logically placed at the tail, which was found to produce much greater control than on other contemporary aircraft. This arrangement remains current today. Tail elevators were not flaps in the conventional style, but were at the tips, tilting around the tailplane spar. The pilot sat in a snug wooden bucket seat. The monoplane was about half the weight of most contemporary designs. In this machine, Blériot was about to make the world’s first sea crossing between countries by aeroplane, flying from a beach to the west of Calais, France, to the hilltop above Dover Castle, Kent, UK.

The great preoccupation of Lord Northcliffe, millionaire proprietor of the Daily Mail newspaper, was in advancing the progress of aviation and particularly the aeroplane. He had offered a series of cash prizes to any pioneer pilot who could achieve record ‘firsts’ one of which was the first non-stop Channel crossing by aeroplane. This attracted a cash prize of £1,000 (about £120,000 today) to anyone who dared. Rival aviator, Parisian Hubert Latham had first attempted the crossing on 19 July in his Antoinette, but engine failure forced him to land onto the sea – the first time a sea landing had been made by aeroplane. 25 July saw the two rivals camped out on the Northern French coastline bracing for further attempts – but it was Blériot who was to try at dawn, 4.41 am, on this day.

Being waved off by a large French crowd (even at that early hour), he started his flight just after sunrise (a condition of the record attempt). He was self admittedly poor at navigation and therefore flew without a compass. Overtaking a ship he had initially been following and reaching a point between the two coastlines, the visibility deteriorated:

‘For about ten minutes I was on my own, isolated, lost in the middle of the foaming sea, seeing no point on the horizon, perceiving no boat…Also my eyes were fixed…on the level of fuel consumption. These ten minutes seemed long and, truly, I was happy to glimpse…the English coast…I headed for this white mountain, but was caught in the wind and the mist…I could no longer see Dover…I could see three boats…They seemed to be heading to a port…I followed them calmly…the wind…got even stronger. A break in the coast appeared to my right, just before Dover Castle. I was madly happy…I rushed for it. I was above ground.’

He circled twice and when satisfied, dropped onto the downward slope of Northfall Meadow, breaking his undercarriage and coming to a rest in view of the castle at 5.12 am, propeller and wheels snapped. It was not long before a crowd of local people were to join him at the landing site, close-marshalled by police. The epic had been achieved. He had taken just over 30 minutes to cover the 24-mile distance.

Hours after his flight, he travelled to London and leaving Victoria Station with Lord Northcliffe beside him, he was cheered by thousands of enthusiastic Londoners. On his return to Paris, Blériot was greeted by an excitable crowd of 100,000 of his countrymen. The Daily Mail said of the event, “Great Britain is no longer an island”, a fact that was celebrated and by some regarded with trepidation, as the air attacks of the future First World War would bear out. At the time pioneer Alan Cobham said of the historic flight that “Britain must seek another form of defence besides ships”. The achievement rescued Blériot’s fortunes: over the coming weeks he received orders for more than 100 Blériot XIs, the design ultimately being mass-produced.

Blériot has a direct connection to the RAF Museum’s site. It was the channel crossing that inspired the founder of the London Aerodrome, later RAF Hendon, Claude Grahame-White to get into powered flight. Grahame-White befriended Blériot to gain admittance to the Rheims Aviation Meet a month later and learned to fly with the man himself in a two-seat Blériot design. Louis Blériot would take part in flying displays as a celebrity appearance in the years preceding the First World War.

You can explore the site where Blériot took off, now named Blériot Plage at Les Baraques, Calais. A water tower decorated with murals depicting the event, now stands close to the location of the starting point. Meanwhile, above the cliffs of Dover, in view of Dover Castle, a granite pad, unveiled in 1910, has the same dimensions and shape of the monoplane and marks the exact spot where Blériot’s plane came to rest down the slope on the chalk down. Certainly, worthy of a visit.

So as you head out, seat-belted into your passenger airliner, to make your oversea crossing to another continent, think again about the first time this was done by the remarkable Louis Blériot and his clever ‘modern’ design.

The RAF Museum’s younger audience is growing and becoming more diverse. We are proud to see how many young people are interested and inspired by the RAF’s history. To make our exhibitions more comprehensive and relevant for younger visitors we created last year our first Youth Panel, a group of young people aged 16 – 24 years old who help us improve our visitor experience at Museum for other young visitors.

Our 2018 Youth Panel was involved in testing our new ideas, running events for young people, finding more about the Museum and the RAF’s history and creating their own exhibition ‘A Century of Recruitment’.

Today we would like to share some insights from the young people who took part in our Youth Panel throughout 2018:

Hello! We’re the RAF Museum Youth Panel.

We are a group of 16 – 24 years old young people with a range of different interests.

The ‘A Century of Recruitment’ exhibition is our first major project as a group. Over the course of a week we’ve put together all the text, posters and pamphlets on display.

Here is a run-down of what we got up to!

Monday:
Monday went by in a daze. We found out about Museum policies from the Head of Exhibitions with lots of documents to guide us for the week. We also heard from Nina Hadaway, the Museum’s Archive, Library and Research Manager about the Museum Archives and ate some biscuits. Having done (some) work, we decided to spend time testing out the new touch screen display in the Learning Centre. We finished the day with a live chat on the RAF careers web-page which didn’t really have the result we were looking for!

Tuesday:
We worked in Archives searching through a selection of materials ranging from the early 20th to 21st Centuries including newspapers, posters and leaflets. It was amazing and interesting! We had a difficult time narrowing down what items to use as there were so many themes. We elected to call the RAF recruitment centre for some modern posters. After a brief call with the army we realised we had the wrong number! A notable highlight was “this is the army, you want a 6 instead of a 0 in the number”.

We went to Tesco and spent a long time browsing sandwiches. 🙂

Wednesday:
We began to (seriously) work, writing captions and paragraphs. We had so much we wanted to say so our exhibit contains only a small amount of our ideas! We mounted the materials.

Matt and Keya went to the Armed Forces Careers Office in Euston to pick up some modern examples of recruitment leaflets… and a spork.

We took a quality picture of us in the children’s play area.

Thursday:
With the 12 o’clock deadline fast approaching, we were all panicking. We started putting things in the newly-cleaned casing to see how it fitted. Allison, Keya and George went off to finish the backing of the last few captions and Keya may have underestimated her strength while cutting, snapping the blade in two. No casualties but it sure scared George half to death. 🙂

It was raining (for once) so we were all glad to be doing inside work. Keya came up with a few designs for a Youth Panel logo, but the Museum already has a logo so we’ll have to stick to that.

Friday:
Today is the afternoon of the grand opening! We’ve put lots of hard work into this display and eaten lots of biscuits. We’re nervous but so excited to see it open! There’s going to be an unveiling of the display with a speech followed by drinks and nibbles and some mingling with Museum Staff. It’s going to be great to see all our hard work pay off!

We can’t wait until next year to do it all again (for more biscuits, a bigger budget, lanyards and t-shirts or hoodies, we don’t mind).

Thank you for reading our blog post. We meet 3 or 4 times a year (pizza included) with other volunteering opportunities included as well.

From the Youth Panel xxx
(Zoe, Alison, Emilia, George, Keya and Matt)

The Youth Panel’s exhibition ‘A Century of Recruitment’ is still on display at the RAF Museum London and everyone can come and view the results of our young people’s work.

This year we are intending to continue this very successful experience and have put out a call to all young people aged 16-24 years old who would be interested in getting involved in our 2019 Youth Panel. We welcome applications from people of all interests, abilities, backgrounds and communities.

As part of the Museum’s transformation in 2018 to celebrate 100 years of the Royal Air Force, the Heritage Lottery Fund has funded a new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Learning Programme.

The Learning Programme at the RAF Museum aims to engage learners of all ages with the story of the RAF. Having for many years run a popular programme of largely history-based workshops, a new STEM strand has been developed to complement the new Centenary exhibitions at our recently revamped London site. Engaging children and young people with the science and technology of aircraft innovation – and sharing with them the stories of the RAF people behind these technological advances – has been the driving force behind the development of a range of new workshops, activities and resources.

One project in the new programme began with a simple brief: ‘create resources to help adults discuss STEM concepts with children.’

In this blog we would like to explain what solution we have found for this challenge and at the same time reveal how a hippo and a humming bird have helped the Museum do that.

First of all, we invited students from the FdA Teaching and Learning course at Middlesex University to our London site back in 2017 and gave them the project brief. As the students all work as Teaching Assistants in schools, they are used to thinking about interesting ways to engage children with complex subjects. With their ‘adult who might be asked questions they can’t answer’ hats on, they took a look around the Museum, identifying the sort of questions children might ask about the aircraft.

The students submitted a wide range of creative responses to the brief but one concept cropped up more than any other; the comparison of aircraft and flying creatures. We now had a theme; biomimicry.

Biomimicry is design inspired by nature. Yes, bats and planes both fly, but did you know that both use a similar method to find their prey? The RADAR antennae on the front the Museums’ Messerschmitt BF110 work a bit like a bat’s SONAR.

Like humans, hippos and fabric covered aircraft such as Hawker Hart can be damaged by harmful UV rays from the sun. Hippos make their own sunblock which is secreted through their skin. Fabric covered aircraft need a special layer of aluminium dope (this looks like silver paint) to protect them.

We chose eight aircraft – from our collection of over 80 on display- where aeronautical designers could have found inspiration in the animal kingdom. In addition to the bat and the hippo, we found links between a hummingbird and our Westland Whirlwind; the bumble bee and our Avro Anson; a robin and our Supermarine Spitfire; a tiger moth and our de Havilland Mosquito; a peregrine falcon and our Panavia Tornado F3, and a snow leopard and our EH101 Merlin helicopter.

It was one thing identifying the similarities between animals and our aircraft, and we could have settled for text panels which explained these to visitors. Then we thought how much better would it be if there were models of the animals for our visitors to look at.

Colindale Primary have been our partner school throughout our RAF Centenary transformation programme, so we asked their Year 6 pupils to get involved in the project. I visited the school earlier in the year to introduce the project to the children and explain a bit about biomimicry. During the summer term Colindale pupils worked closely with art and design students from the North London Grammar School to create the amazing animals now on display.

In July 2018, all the project partners were invited to the Museum for an opening party. One of the most rewarding parts of the project was seeing just how excited they were to see their work on display in the RAF Museum London.

So why not visit to see the fantastic animal sculptures and find out a bit more about biomimicry and aviation? Our London site is open daily from 10.00am. Admission is free.

The Royal Air Force Museum London sits at the heart of a diverse, exciting and ever changing community. One of the most important aspects of our role as a museum is to reach out and engage with, and be relevant to, as many different peoples, ages, ethnic groups, opinions, interests as possible.

In order to do this the RAF Museum is taking its collections out into the community and bringing the community into, and feeling part of, our collections.

Young people are an extremely important part of our local community and traditionally not the easiest group of people to engage with outside of a traditional school setting. As a museum, we are bridging the gap between young people and their local history by looking at our collection in new ways.

The RAF Museum can of course be used to inform and educate young people but it should also be used to inspire them. One project which exemplifies this is our partnership with SoundSkool, a specialist music college, to deliver a week of sessions with local teenagers culminating in a final performance and them gaining a Rock School Qualification. Students spent the week exploring the Museum, getting hands on with our uniform handling collection and learning about the history of the Museum’s site as well as learning song-writing and recording skills.

The undoubted highlight of the final performance 2018 under our Avro Lancaster was an original song written by the students inspired by what they had learnt about the Royal Air Force during the week. The emotions of pilots fighting throughout history and the difficult moral decisions that need to be made were the inspiration for this song.

As well as working with the students from SoundSkool the RAF Museum is engaging other young people, and those that are young at heart, at a range of local events. At our stand at the Grange Big Local Fun Palace the community were given the opportunity to walk in the shoes (well, actually wear the jacket) of RAF personnel as well as trying their hand at making Typhoons, Vulcans, Tornados and F-35 Lightnings out of paper and testing which flew best. Rain on the day did not dampen our spirits and the Typhoon won by a landslide.

Another exciting local event the Museum has recently been involved with was a day of activities celebrating Black History Month at the Grahame Park Estate. Attendees attempted to place historic events on a black history timeline as well as being introduced to stories of black and bi-racial servicemen and women in the Royal Air Force.

People were surprised at the range of roles carried out by black personnel throughout the RAF’s history and also the sheer number of African-Caribbean people who volunteered to serve in the Royal Air Force during the First and Second World War. The love story of Flight Sergeant David Abiodun Oguntoye, who was born in Nigeria, and British Flight Sergeant Dulcie Ethel Adunola Oguntoye elicited some emotional responses from attendees showing how personal and pertinent the stories that we tell are.

Spreading the word about RAF stories that haven’t been told in the past; uncovering histories that have been hidden and shouting about them is at the heart of the RAF Museum’s community engagement work.

Dr Ronnie Fraser, an RAF Museum volunteer who was recruited as part of our HLF funded Historic Hendon project, recently researched and delivered a fascinating talk on the British Jewry’s involvement with the Royal Flying Corp in the First World War at Finchley Church End Library.

Interest in this aspect of the Royal Air Force’s history was apparent by the packed room that came to hear Dr Fraser speak and the enthusiasm with which the audience asked questions and examined handling objects chosen to bring that talk to life. Taking these amazing stories out into the community is really connecting people with not only the Museum and our collection but their own history.

Community engagement projects are ongoing and the RAF Museum is always looking to work with local community groups to share the amazing heritage of the Royal Air Force and our local area. As you can see our work within the community is as varied and exciting as the community itself.

These projects have been made possible by the generous funding of the Heritage Lottery Fund and John Lyon’s Charity.