Herbert Phillips Adams

 

The original version of this post led with a photo of David Adams, Herbert's father, but I am finally able to update with a photo - not optimal quality - of Herbert.  This is taken from a photo of what may be the group he was training with in the RAF:

We also have a great new photo of Herbert's father, David.  

He was a golfer, but also designed golf courses, made golf clubs and ran a sports outfitters in Royal Exchange Square in Glasgow. 

David's shop has the sun shades out.  This would be approximately the same view (in 2018):

This is now Costa Coffee.

For more detail of David's story click here, but the key element is that from 1910 he was the professional at Douglas Park Golf Club (for non-golfers in Bearsden, this is the one accessed from the road behind Hillfoot Station.)

In 1916, David lived in a villa called Balcarres (now number 5 West Chapelton Crescent) with his wife Margaret (nee Margaret Rennie Wilkinson from Kinnell) and four children.  Herbert was born on 17th January of that year, at 2.15am.

By the time of the 1921 Census, the family had a servant, Isa McCulloch:

Isa was from Slamannan (if you were on the M8 to Edinburgh, turn left at Harthill services and it's about 10 miles north).  She married John Horner two years later (the wedding is recorded as being at Balcarres) and she moved to Hamilton where she died in 1977.

We know very little about Herbert.  He attended Glasgow Academy.  In 1931 he achieved his three years service badge in the Boys' Brigade at the the annual inspection reported in the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald:

He was also born into a golfing family: apart from his father, his brothers David junior and Jimmy also played.  According to the Douglas Park Golf Club Jimmy was the most successful, wining the Club Championship seven times between 1929 and 1948; the Club's archivist wrote, "Jimmy is remembered as a tall slim, bespectacled man with a lazy, repetitive swing which was very effective as his record bears out.  He not only had abundant talent as a golfer but was also an accomplished and successful badminton player who represented Scotland in international badminton matches on 16 occasions from 1933 to 1949."  David and his sons, including Herbert, provided golf services and equipment on a part-time basis up until 1938 when a full-time professional was employed.  His name was James Kilroy and he also appears on the Bearsden War Memorial.

There is another long gap to 1941 before we can place Herbert again.  It is 9th April and he is in Kabrit, Egypt, trained as a pilot to fly Wellington bombers and a member of 148 Squadron.  His mission was to fly to Malta, simple to say but here is the map:

Kabrit is now Kibrit, denoted by the red circle in the bottom right corner.  While Egypt was still in the hands of Britain and her allies, Libya was occupied by Germany and Italy.  Sicily and Italy would also contain hostile forces and three days earlier the Germans had invaded Greece and (as it then was) Yugoslavia.  Malta was a key base for the navy and air force and had to be constantly reinforced to replace losses.  Herbert was to fly one of the three planes ordered to the island.

This a photo of the type of plane Herbert was flying, taken at Kabrit.  The Squadron's operation records book tells some of the struggle to get the planes ready:

As this account shows, only two aircraft were fit to go; a third had to be made serviceable in time, in the face of lack of experience by the staff involved.  It is not stated which pilot was flying the third plane.

Taking off at 1pm, the three planes refuelled at the last base in Egypt before the sea crossing, called Amariya.

The squadron log for the next day reported:

This was not a place to record sentiment and the crew are not mentioned again.  

We don't know why Herbert didn't arrive; the Court of Inquiry stated weather conditions were fair and that "shortage of petrol was the cause. Can only be supposed that aircraft developed exceptionally high petrol consumption." (Thanks for this information to Ross, as part of the forum WW2 Talk, highly recommended as a place for non-specialists to seek help on family history research.)

The rest of Herbert's crew are listed here:

Sergeant Kenneth George Welby Clifton was born 21^st September 1919, youngest of eight children.  In 1939 lived at 9 Somerset Gardens, Teddington, an insurance broker’s clerk.  He was in the RAF Volunteer Reserve at the time.  His father was a retired aircraft factory worker.

Flight Sergeant Phillip Cramp was born 24^th November 1914. His father was killed in Flanders on 1st April 1918.  In 1939 he lived at Church Cottage Ruardean, Gloucestershire, and was a sergeant in the RAF, No. 1 ITS (…), No. 2 Squadron.  He married Evelyn Grace d’Allen in St Dionis, Parsons Green on 29 September 1935.

Sergeant Henry Louis Moody was born 31^st March 1917 in Grimsby and was known as Harry. He was married with a daughter aged 8 months old. His occupation had been as a salesman, but he learned to fly and received his certificate on 8^th August 1939.

Sergeant Joseph Lewis McNamara was born 18^th August 1919 in Cambridge, New Zealand.  He was an air gunner.  

He “was posted to No. 15 Operational Training Unit to crew up on Vickers Wellingtons on the 20th of July 1940.  On the 6th of September Joseph was posted to No. 149 Squadron, as an air gunner on Wellingtons.  He was to be on a crew that ferried a Wellington from England to Egypt, leaving on the 23rd of February 1941. On arrival he joined No. 148 Squadron and began to fly operationally with them.” (source)

Joseph Edward Sellors may also have been known as James.  He was born in 1917 and is commemorated on two war memorials in Littleover, Derbyshire.

Appendix

David Adams, Herbert's father, featured in two articles in the Daily Record of 1921, illustrating how to play golf shots: