Evasion - F/L Henry Joseph Cleary

Discussion in 'Fighter' started by allan125, Sep 18, 2014.

  1. allan125

    allan125 Active Member
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    Hello Pat

    A little background information for Joseph Cleary - I have a photo of an crashed LO-Z, which could be MH512, but it appears to be laying upside down, in a cornfield, in the same manner as one showing the LO but not the final letter next to the field grave (dated 4 July) of F/O J W Kelly, which could be ML252 (but I don't know the last letter on that one)

    J5038 Flight Lieutenant Joseph Henry Cleary R.C.A.F. was a pilot with No. 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron flying Spitfire Mk. IXb's. F/L Cleary was flying Spitfire s/n MH512 and coded LO-Z during an early morning armed reconnaissance of the Argentan region.

    He dived on a German motor transport column and was subsequently hit by flak. F/L Cleary managed to send out a mayday before bailing out. Pilots of his squadron reported to have last seen him entering cloud in a northerly heading. The Spitfire struck the ground some 30 miles southeast of Caen. Now an evader, F/L Cleary managed to rendezvous with a number of other allied fliers who were in the same predicament.

    Their dash to freedom ended on the 8th of July when they were killed during a gun battle with the Germans. F/L Cleary was initially buried at St. Clair but was later exhumed and re-buried in plot number XIX. F.3.of the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery.

    regards

    Allan
     
  2. Pat Curran

    Pat Curran Administrator
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    Oct 20, 2012
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    RE: Canadian Aerial Photo source

    Thanks Allan,

    I had read your post on one of the RAF forums regarding F/L Cleary. I have the SOE side of the story from reading 'Unearthing Churchill's Secret Army - The Official List of SOE Casualties and Their Stories' but I wonder how F/L Cleary got caught up in the incident. Do you know what happened to the other evading airmen in the group?

    I'll open a dedicated thread on this incident over the weekend and move our posts here onto it.

    Regards,

    Pat
     
  3. allan125

    allan125 Active Member
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    RE: Canadian Aerial Photo source

    Hi Pat

    I believe from "Their dash to freedom ended on the 8th of July when they were killed during a gun battle with the Germans." that they were all killed in the attack, but where I found my original piece, who they were, and what happened to them I have no idea.

    Although the Freteval forest is not in Normandy perhaps they were doing the same type of thing as there, but came unstuck?

    http://www.ww2escapelines.co.uk/escapers-evaders/freteval-forest/

    I will send you the two pictures of the shot down 602 Spitfires - please refresh my memory on which forum I was on about F/L Cleary

    regards

    Allan
     
  4. Pat Curran

    Pat Curran Administrator
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    Oct 20, 2012
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    Hi Allan,

    OK, I seem to have succeeded in moving the above three posts from Dale's 'Canadian Aerial Photo Source' thread without breaking anything in the process ;)

    I found your post regarding F/L Cleary on the RAF Commands Forum here - it's dated June 2013.

    Thanks for the photos; working on them as we speak.

    Regards,

    Pat
     
  5. Pat Curran

    Pat Curran Administrator
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    Oct 20, 2012
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    Hi All,

    Allan has sent on these two photographs of a crashed Spitfire 'somewhere in France' during the summer of 1944:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    The pair of photographs, obviously of German origin, apparently show the crash site of F/O J.W. Kelly, No. 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron, who was killed on the 4th July when his aircraft 'failed to return' from a sortie on a 'front line patrol' - see extract below from 602's Form 541:
    [​IMG]

    Three days earlier, the Squadron's ORB Form 541 for the 1st July has the entry referring to F/L Henry Joseph Cleary 'failure to return':
    [​IMG]

    However, Allan has noticed a dependency...

    Over to you Allan :D

    Regards,

    Pat
     
  6. allan125

    allan125 Active Member
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    hello Pat

    Thanks for reminding me of my comment last year to Hugh Halliday, in which I (and now the group) learnt a lot more about the background of F/Lt Cleary.

    Are you referring to my point in my e-mail

    "Photos that I mentioned – I have checked the 602 F541, but it only lists serials and not individual aircraft code letters – we know from elsewhere (?) that Cleary was in MH512 LO-Z, and the attached photo clearly shows a Z and what looks (to me) as a 2 appearing in the white stripe, which of course could be the same as the 252 of Kelly!!

    With the field grave below clearly showing who it is this can only be ML252 – but if a second LO-Z it meant an immediate replacement of the Z of Cleary giving another to Kelly, but that doesn’t hold water as on 1 July W/O Fox is clearly shown flying ML252 at the same time that Cleary was in MH512 – and having two marked LO-Z at the same time, and on the same operation is a no-no!!"

    I fully accept that it could be the same aircraft in both photos, and in that case Jimmy Kelly was flying LO-Z ML252, but whilst I know where the information has come from stating that Cleary was in MH512 what is the source of it being LO-Z

    Certainly not here http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/home.html

    MH512 LFIX CBAF M66 39MU 21-8-43 405ARF 22-9-43 602S 6-10-43 Hit by flak when attacking MT in Argentan area 1-7-44 F/Lt H J Cleary RCAF killed

    ML252 LFIX CBAF M66 8MU 23-4-44 602S 15-6-44 Shot down by Fw190s over Normandy 4-7-44 F/O J W Kelly killed

    The individual codes are not shown the Form 541, nor in 2nd Tactical Air Force Vol 2 Breakout to Bodenplatte by Chris Shores/Chris Thomas, nor in Fighter Command Losses Vol 3 by Norman Franks

    However, I dug even deeper than Pat (is that possible?), and found a post that I contributed to back in July 2004 - which mentions Cleary being in LO-Q (in those days I was allanoftruro!!)

    http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/05791.php and shows where I got my information from about being with other allied flyers, and being killed in a gun battle, but Chris Charland doesn't answer my point about LO-Q or LO-Z - and Hugh Halliday doesn't mention any code from his logbook!

    So I dug even deeper - And we can now find in this very interesting article the source of LO-Q, which tells us more about Henry Cleary, and possibly closes the case if correct, seeming to confirm that the two photos are of the same aircraft - LO-Z ML252 of Jimmy Kelly

    https://legionmagazine.com/en/2013/11/the-search-for-henry-cleary/

    see also http://twgpp.org/information.php?id=818866

    This link also features Frank Joel Clark, the subject of our search for a Spitfire crash site/field burial site

    http://www.fallenheroesphotos.org/Servicemen/Regiment/159

    For a photo of his final burial site at Bretteville Sur Laize Canadian War Cemetery

    Regards

    Allan
     
  7. Pat Curran

    Pat Curran Administrator
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    Oct 20, 2012
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    Hi Allan,

    I notice reading your Legion Magazine link that one of the French men who managed to escape from the farmhouse is named as Jean Foncu. I wonder was this guy one of the airmen which Cleary met on the evasion trail or was he French Resistance?

    I am sure there must some published account of the farmhouse incident by a local historian. This might provide details as to how the airmen came to arrive at Grosclaude Farm.

    I'll keep digging.

    Regards,

    Pat
     
  8. allan125

    allan125 Active Member
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    Hello Pat

    I have found another piece by Hugh Halliday which mentions Jean Foncu http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?14770-H-J-Cleary-and-Maurice-Larcher-killed-8-7-44 - see also http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Larcher and http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Renaud-Dandicolle which refers to Jean Foncu as Jean and John Foucu in the google translate text - note " After the departure of liaison officers remain six people to spend the night at the farm René"; "Vladimir"; Lieutenant Harry Cleary, a young Canadian driver collected the day before the bush after his plane was shot down; a local official Jean Foucu; and farmers. " and "only John Foucu manages to avoid the shots and to take shelter; farmers themselves have managed to hide, but they are betrayed by their dog that the Germans unleashed and finds them. Taken as "René", they will be like him, led nowhere, and completed. No trace of them has ever been found. "René" was twenty" and, finally "Maurice Larcher and Harry Cleary, left without weapons as the case was fast, and were joined slaughtered five hundred meters from the farm". So Foucu/Foncu was, apparently, a local official and not an allied evader, and here it says that the farmers were found by their dog which was released by the Germans, and in another report they took their dog with them and that is why it did not raise the alarm when the germans first turned up.

    Added new piece: just a thought - I wonder what names are on the local war memorials as they tend to show the civilian deaths at the hands of the Germans as well as the military deaths in WW1 and WW2 (near where I was on holiday the local war memorial at Bray-sur-seine even included a handful of resistants killed in the liberation of the little town, around 22 August 1944, as well as civilian deaths - unfortunately I did not take a photo of the memorial on this occasion).

    regards

    Allan
     
  9. Pat Curran

    Pat Curran Administrator
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    Oct 20, 2012
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    Hi Allan,

    I have so far failed to find any information as to how F/L Cleary came to be at the Grosclaude Farm when he was killed. The story is even more vague as to how many other airmen were caught up in this immediate incident or whether they were lost at some other nearby fire fight with the Germans.

    Regards,

    Pat
     

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