Helensburgh Heritage
Helensburgh Heritage Trust
THE Facebook post was succinct: “Afghanistan, I weep for you.” The surprise was that the author runs a bed and breakfast establishment at Arrochar.
But to anyone who knows Brenda Steele MacCrimmon, it was no surprise that the proprietor of Fascadail on Loch Longside felt that way.
RAF HELENSBURGH had on its books during World War Two the last two Supermarine Stranraer twin-engined flying boats operated by the RAF.
The Stranraer was a design by Reginald Mitchell, who also designed the Schneider Trophy winning seaplane and also the Supermarine Spitfire.
ARTISTS, photographers, wordsmiths, all had a role to play at RAF Helensburgh during World War Two.
Home to the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment, it was the country’s only flying boat base devoted to testing ways of waging war against U-Boats.
A YOUNG Helensburgh army officer who served in Britain’s only Mountain Division in World War Two lost his life in a seaborn attack.
Lieutenant Adrian Alan Oliphant Kidston, only son of Brevet Colonel R.A.P.R. Kidston and his wife Penelope, served in Unit 452 Battery, 1st Mountain Regiment, 52nd Lowland Division.
OF THE scores of flying boats and seaplanes belonging to RAF Helensburgh during World War Two, only one remains today.
In keeping with a cloak and dagger past, the aircraft is now on public display with a new name and civilian identity.
RAF HELENSBURGH had close links with the Blackburn Aircraft Company in Dumbarton during World War Two.
They worked jointly on the Sunderland flying boats which were built at the Denny yard in the shadow of Dumbarton Rock and then had their airworthiness checked at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Rhu.
A HELENSBURGH man lost his life piloting a bomber in a night raid on the industrial Ruhr area of Germany during World War Two.
John Ralph Hubbard, known to all as Johnny, was 27 when his Manchester bomber L7518 on a mission to Essen was shot down by a night fighter and crashed near the village of Warmenhuizen in the north west Netherlands on the night of Wednesday March 25 1942.