My Father was with 13 OTU from 12th April 1941 until he joined 139 Squadron, flying Blenheims on 17th June 1941. His name was Kenneth Fenton.
My research to date on this OTU is very general with nothing specific about the crews, only the staff. No photo's, ORB's, etc. like you find with other OTU's.
The other members of his crew were also there, A A Fuller and R W McDonald. Any help you can give over this period would be very welcome.
Reading through the OTU details it is really noticable how they refer to 'wastage', i.e. failed crew members, deaths, etc. People who did not reach the front line.
According to rafweb.org 13OTU formed as part of 6 Gp at Bicester in 1940.By the time Nick's father joined it it had transferred to 7 Gp without ,apparently, changing location Dick
No 13 OTU, apart from operating out of its main base at Bicester, also used Hinton in the Hedges as its main satellite.Weston on the Green was also used for night flying. As Bicester,another small grass field.
At the outbreak of war,two Blenheim squadrons,No 104 and No 108 were based here and basically used as training squadrons (Blenheim crew training took about 6 months ) but by April 1940 had merged to form No 13 OTU.
This OTU passed out 217 pilots,240 observers and 273 air gunners during its first year of training.By the second year,the OTU turned out nearly 300 Blenheim aircrews.
In June 1943, No 13 OTU left Bomber Command and was placed in the Fighter Command training scheme,still at Bicester,for the future mobilisation of the 2nd Tactical Air Force.During this period, Blenheims were still being used for pilot training and operational conversion and the last Blenheim flying training finished in February 1944.
Bicester was one of those RAF stations which received considereable upgrading during the 1930s RAF expansion but was never destined to be a front line station.Short grass runways, it had little potential for extension and cope with the larger Bomber Command aircraft coming into service."Behind the lines" it was ideal for training but newer bomber airfields being constructed had a distinct advantage over prewar airfields such as Bicester.
The records at Kew are very elusive with no details, names or photos like other OTU's. Any help would be much appreciated.
