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Doreen Lambert
Miss D. Lambert, No. 3502 (Ulster) F.C.U., R.A.F. Edenmore, Whiteabbey -
Born 7th December 1914 - died
27th July1996
Mrs. Emily Boys Russell Died 15th October 1948
CLICK to enlarge -
not sure what these are, ship routes? hope they aren't Top Secret ;)
3502 Ulster Fighter Control Unit -
Air Commodore The Rt. Hon. Viscount Brookeborough, C.B.E., M.C., D.L., M.P.,
Honorary Air Commodore
Air Marshal Sir Basil E. Embry, K.C.B., K.B.E., D.S.O., D.F.C., A.F.C., Air
Officer Commanding-in-Chief
Air Vice-Marshal R. L. R. Archerley, C.B., C.B.E., A.F.C., Air Officer
Commanding
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2nd Lambert lot has turned up
photos and contents
To have the honour of meeting Their Majesties The King and Queen. The
Government of Northern Ireland request the pleasure of the company of Flight
Officer Doreen Lambert at a Garden Party at Stormont on Friday, 1st June
1951.
unfortunately very few of the photos have any information on the back
February 1950
Doreen
Belfast Telegraph
Studio Art Service, Cromac Street, Belfast
Belfast Telegraph
Belfast Telegraph
W. Abernethy, Donegall Place, Belfast
W. Abernethy, Donegall
Place, Belfast
Connaght Tribune
Belfast Telegraph
The Northern Whig Ltd.
Belfast News-Letter
Belfast Telegraph
Sunbeam Photo Ltd., Margate
Belfast News-Letter
1
2
3
1) The blinds are down. The
room's dark, except for the pale white glow from the illuminated
frosted-glass maps. A cool-voiced W.A.A.F. and two R.A.F. types are
standing facing the map in use. The three of them, each using a 'phone,
are passing on the information which has been pencilled by the Squadron
Leader on the map. Castlerock 18 Queenie Roger . . . . 5021 Charlie .
. . . Cushendun Hostile 16 able faded . . . . Mix up 12 Charlie West
. . . . To me it seemed they were talking shorthand! The map
covered most of Ulster, the North Channel, part of Scotland and the Isle
of Man. The Teller was marking on it the progress of an air scrap off
the north coast. "Usually we get this information from the radar trucks
outside," said the Teller, "but I'm inventing this." The voice murmured
on. All so much Greek to me, the interloper, but the brief phrases tell
the full story in the next room. Hello Music . . . . 26 Hostile
faded . . . . In the next room - the Ops room - the map was
repeated . . . . except that it was now much larger, and painted on an
immense circular table.
Round it stood a number of couples - Waafs and Rafs -
each one of them wearing headphones. Except for the faint but clear
voice of the Controller there was scarce a sound in the room. She was at
her phone, which was in contact with the Tellers in the next room, and
in contact with all the district's air-fields. (Not really in
touch with the airfields, but she would be if this were active duty.)
The Plotting table was tilted and the story it told was directly under
her eyes. Her main job's to pass information to the Squadrons. The table
was littered with metal indicators - red, blue, yellow. There were
numbers representing aircraft; shapes representing convoys; all movable
and kept moving by the magnetised Plotting Rods - affairs like billiard
cues - used by the ear-phoned-operatives. In other words, they were
between them creating a picture of the air "war" they were controlling:
everything - height, speeds, positions, aircraft.
Tally-Ho! "Just got a tally-ho," said the Controller. "That
means the enemy is sighted. Watch the Tote." Tote? The
Tote's that frame at the end of the room. It shows by means of coloured
indicators the current position of the Squadrons being controlled from
this Ops. Room. The Tote Operator shifted the Squadron Number of
the aircraft, which had just sighted the enemy, from !Airborne!
to "Enemy Sighted." The Tote also gives the full and
up-to-date gen on weather and all that sort of thing. Our Controller
still talks gently at her phone. "202 Squadron to intercept X-raid on
Scotland," she says. Backwards and forwards move the plotting rods
as they transmute the information coming through their wielders
headphones into an almost nursery-clear picture on the table.
"We'll spend the whole afternoon at this," commented the Controller. And
a very interesting afternoon, too, I'd say. Certainly this bunch
of boys and girls were completely immersed in the job. They were so
serious, so intent, that you'd have sworn it was the real thing. (Once,
indeed, I fancied I heard the sirens!) But here I am. I've got
this far, and I haven't yet told you where I am. Actually I'm with 3502
Fighter Control Unit of the R.Aux.A.F. in their H.Q.s outside
Whiteabbey.
They're here for a week-end; about 100 all told. Two
nights a week and a monthly week-end is their training ration. "Quite a
lot of them are ex-R.A.F.," said the C.O. "About fifty-fifty, That's
among the men. Not so many ex-Waafs." Some are ex-Army, some are
ex-Wrens, and there's even one ex-Marine! Here's a room where the
radar and wireless mechanics learn their job. "Radar is an invisible
search-light," said the sergeant. "Sends out a beam which bounces back
when it hits something." Outside was the mobile radar van, which
was chock full of gear; buttons, plugs, switches, miles and miles of
wire, as well as the huge radar apparatus. Know anything about it?
Not much? Neither do I - even after I'd had it explained to me!
Anyway, this circular convex piece of dull glass, lit up from behind, is
the radar screen. Round the rim are marked the degrees of the earth's
circumference and the screen itself is divided into tiny squares. If the
radar ray intercepts a plane a blip comes on the screen. Blip?
A wee speck of light. It's actual position can be taken from its
relation to the particular square on the screen. (Clear?
Well, I'll hope for the best!)
Close to this screen on another instrument is a second
screen. On this you will find the height at which the radar-located
aircraft is flying. Magic? The Piddingtons have nothing on
the F.C.U.! And this affair over here? It's what seems to be
a length of garden railings circling round like the hobby-horses. It'd
be about twenty-foot long and ten-foot deep, and it kept going round and
round and round on a pivot on top of the van. "That's the radar
aerial," said the Squadron-Leader, "Sweeping the sky. The blip stays
long enough on the screen to be observed." Right enough, magic's
the word. It's a lovely day outside. Belfast Lough is blue in the spring
sun. The Holywood Hills spread their restful contours against the clear
sky. Tall trees ornament the grounds. Carnmoney Hill and Knockagh add to
the scenery., . . . Time-off now for a spell. There's a
table-tennising in the canteen. There's talking. And darts. And
sociability. Drill? "Oh, yes, of course," said the Adjutant.
"But it's mainly technical work. Most of us are from Belfast, naturally,
but we have one or two from Larne and Holywood and Bangor." We'd a
look round. The high-ceilinged dining-room was the original ballroom of
this old house, and echo of the early days when the Belfast merchants
began to flourish. But the sun's shining. A suggestion of spring's in
the air. Let's walk round the grounds. And here's a discovery not made
by radar: an animal's cemetery, complete with headstones and all the
rest. And, I'd swear, the remains of wreaths, too, on some of the
tombs. "Oh, yes," I was told later, "Not only dogs and cats, but a pet
hen is buried there!" But that's nothing to do with F.C.U.
There's lots more. The officers' mess, for instance, and the Orderly
Room, and the Cookhouse, and all that, which we can safely skip.
It's the radar I'm interested in, Nothing to it,
really, I'm told, "Just the speed of the radio wave," said our friend.
"And that's how it works." You may now take it from here!
What's that? The officers? Oh, the genuine type: complete
with wings and medal ribbons galore. Once it was war. Now
it's spare-time. So now, if you hear 3502 F.C.U. mentioned you'll
know what it means . . . . I mean you'll have a slight idea of what it
means!
2) Air girls to have a new
director by Daily Mail Reporter - Miss Nancy Marion Salmon, 44-year-old
group officer, has been appointed to succeed 37-year-old Air Commandant
Dame Felicity Hanbury as Director of the Women's Royal Air Force.
The new Director will take over on July 1 next with the acting rank of
Air Commandant, the Air Ministry announced last night. Air-Commandant
Hanbury is retiring. She is the widow of Pilot-Officer Jock Hanbury, an
Auxiliary Air Force pilot who was killed in 1939. She was the first
woman to be awarded a military M.B.E. She received this decoration for
gallantry and devotion to duty while serving as senior W.A.A.F. officer
at the famous Spitfire base at Biggin Hill, Kent, during the Battle of
Britain. Mrs. Hanbury and three W.A.A.F. N.C.O.'s who showed great
courage during air-raids on Biggin Hill, gained the first operational
awards of the war in the women's services.
In Germany - She became head of the W.R.A.F. at the age
of 33, and, when the W.R.A.F. was formed in February 1949, she was its
first director. Miss Salmon - tall, dark and quiet - has, since January,
been serving as W.R.A.F. staff officer at the headquarters of British
Air Forces of Occupation in Germany. Before that, for two years, she had
been a deputy director of the Service. A Londoner by birth, she joined
the A.T.S. in 1938 and later transferred to W.A.A.F. In 1945 she was
awarded the O.B.E. for her radar work as the officer responsible for
W.A.A.F. operators posted to isolated stations on the coast and
overseas. The strength of the W.R.A.F. when last announced was nearly
13,000. When the force received its new name in February last year a
target figure of 26,000 was set.
3) 128 Perish In Irish Sea
Disaster - Last Hours - From the stories of several survivors, I have
pieced together the last hours in the life of Major Sinclair. At
Stranraer, ten minutes before the Princess Victoria sailed out for the
last time, he was discussing prospects for the crossing with the chief
steward, James Blair, whose home is at 3 Salisbury Terrace, Larne.
Blair, one of the survivors, told me that Major Sinclair stood by the
rail at the side of the ship for some minutes and then went inside to
the lounge. The story is continued by William Copley, Alliance
Avenue, Belfast, one of a party of employees of Shortt Brothers and
Harland, Ltd., who were making the crossing. When the ship was listing
steeply and the floor of the lounge was almost perpendicular, he and
four other men used a rope to pull Major Sinclair from the starboard
side of the lounge up the slope to the port side. - Jumped Into Sea -
Like many other passengers and members of the crew, Major Sinclair then
clung to the port rail for safety. At this stage, Major Sinclair and Sir
Walter Smiles were still together and Sir Walter was hauled up by a rope
to the port side. A third survivor said that the order to abandon ship
was given, and he saw Major Sinclair jump from the ship into the raging
sea, calling out as he went: "My name in Sinclair." This was
apparently for the benefit of members of the crew who had been
attempting to keep check on the passengers. The survivor said that
he did not see Major Sinclair after he had jumped into the water.
 
hard to make out - 50th? Rising? Sons ? Edenmore F.C.U.? Total Abstainers -
?allop? - Guinness - ? - ? - ? - Brandy - Old & Mild Bitters? ~ Semper? in
Exche??us? - Red Biddy? - Cider - Pims No. 1 - Port - ? ? - Rum - Sherry -
"Hic"
 
no info
 
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