R.W.Richardson 141 Squadron RAF No 52460
| Ronald Richardson joined the Royal Air Force before the war and trained initially as a Wireless Operator. By 1939, following remustering he had been awarded his Observers brevet and joined No 141Sqn (Defiants) at Turnhouse. Later in the war he was burned in a Havoc (I think) crash at R.A.F. Manston and I believe he may have had some minor plastic surgery from Archie McIndoe's team. In 1943 he was commissioned and attended an air traffic control course at RAF Northolt. He left the Royal Air Force as a Flying Officer in 1946 and joined the Ministry of Transport's air traffic control service at Manchester airport. He became one of the team who designed the airways system in Northern England and latterly controlled at Manchester's en-route sub-centre at Barton Hall, Preston. He died in 1966 and his wife, my Grandmother, who had been the nanny to the Station Commander's children at RAF Mildenhall, died last year. |