Helensburgh Heritage
Helensburgh Heritage Trust
NOVEMBER 12 1944 saw the destruction of Nazi Germany’s largest weapon, the mighty battleship Tirpitz, at the end of a three year operation in which RAF Helensburgh was heavily involved.
Lancasters bombed the battleship, causing it to list and roll over, killing between 950 and 1,204 people aboard.
TRIPLETS set out from Helensburgh to fight for their country in World War One . . . but one did not return.
RAF pilot Lieutenant William Russell Jnr., son of Luss Estates Factor William Russell, was killed in a flying accident on April 3 1918, just two days after the RAF officially came into existence.
HELENSBURGH was known for a time during World War Two as ‘Little Norway’.
That was also the name given to a Norwegian Air Force base formed in Toronto during the autumn of 1940.
A HELENSBURGH man who died in 2000 at the age of 80 was reckoned to be the last remaining officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to win the Military Cross twice in World War Two.
John Henry Fleck Morton — known to all as Harry, which was also his father’s name — was born in Old Kilpatrick in 1920 but grew up in Helensburgh and spent much of his life in the town.
FOUR members of a Belgian refugee family spent part of World War One living in Garelochhead.
Now an historical society in their home town in Belgium, Zwijndrecht en Burcht, wants to find out more about them, and if possible find family members who can can supply more information about the stay in Scotland.
EACH Remembrance Sunday a Poppy Cross is placed at the Rhu War Memorial on the village green in memory of men who died while serving at RAF Helensburgh in World War Two.
RAF Helensburgh was the cover name for a secret wing of the Royal Air Force, the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment, which tested experimental flying boats.
A MEMBER of a well-known Helensburgh family died unexpectedly in hospital after receiving gunshot wounds at Ypres in 1917.