Ted Thackway, pilot
Ted Thackway was born on January 10th 1920, and so was 23 years old at the time of the crash. He had grown up in Bilton, a northern suburb of Harrogate in Yorkshire.
He had a younger brother, Jim, also in the RAF but ground crew not air crew. After Ted's death, Jim tried hard to find out what had happened to his brother but due to wartime secrecy learnt very little.
Ted and Jim had been brought up by their mother Elsie almost entirely on her own, as her husband George was something of a wanderer. Elsie worked as a seamstress at Marshall and Snelgrove in Harrogate. As a boy Ted was very much his mother's mainstay. Even whilst at school, he was earning extra money for the household, working as a milkman's delivery boy to supplement the meagre family income, and his customers liked him very much, coming up the garden path every morning always cheerful, always whistling - he was proverbial for his good nature.
In the early 1930s, George came home long enough to give Elsie another son, John, before vanishing for another few years. At about this same time, Ted left Christ Church and for two years attended Harrogate Technical School, leaving at the age of fifteen.
For someone of his background, the employment prospects were dismal, and so Ted became a dairy man and later a van driver.
In June 1939, at the age of nineteen, he signed up with the RAF for six years, and from then on things began to go very well for him. He began as an Aircrafthand/Flight Mechanic, but such was his natural ability that he soon transfered to pilot training and became an officer.
Ted was even-tempered, slow to anger, and very self-controlled. At the same time he was always ready to laugh, he always saw the funny side of things. Serious and ambitious enough to have qualified as a pilot and to have become an officer, no easy thing for someone of his background, at the same time he was equable, likeable, and easy-going.
He had a younger brother, Jim, also in the RAF but ground crew not air crew. After Ted's death, Jim tried hard to find out what had happened to his brother but due to wartime secrecy learnt very little.
Ted and Jim had been brought up by their mother Elsie almost entirely on her own, as her husband George was something of a wanderer. Elsie worked as a seamstress at Marshall and Snelgrove in Harrogate. As a boy Ted was very much his mother's mainstay. Even whilst at school, he was earning extra money for the household, working as a milkman's delivery boy to supplement the meagre family income, and his customers liked him very much, coming up the garden path every morning always cheerful, always whistling - he was proverbial for his good nature.
In the early 1930s, George came home long enough to give Elsie another son, John, before vanishing for another few years. At about this same time, Ted left Christ Church and for two years attended Harrogate Technical School, leaving at the age of fifteen.
For someone of his background, the employment prospects were dismal, and so Ted became a dairy man and later a van driver.
In June 1939, at the age of nineteen, he signed up with the RAF for six years, and from then on things began to go very well for him. He began as an Aircrafthand/Flight Mechanic, but such was his natural ability that he soon transfered to pilot training and became an officer.
Ted was even-tempered, slow to anger, and very self-controlled. At the same time he was always ready to laugh, he always saw the funny side of things. Serious and ambitious enough to have qualified as a pilot and to have become an officer, no easy thing for someone of his background, at the same time he was equable, likeable, and easy-going.
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Edward Thackway, Jack Powell, George Grundy, Peter Hughes Mack, Robert Anthony Lawrence, Leslie Laver, Leslie Kenneth Alexander Grant, 97 Squadron, 16/17 December 1943
Edward Thackway, Jack Powell, George Grundy, Peter Hughes Mack, Robert Anthony Lawrence, Leslie Laver, Leslie Kenneth Alexander Grant, 97 Squadron, 16/17 December 1943
Aircrew on Berlin op - December 16/17 1943