This is Pilot Officer (Observer) 84729 Norman Frederick Dawson who served in 114 Squadron, part of the Royal Air Force’s Coastal Command and was killed when his Bristol Blenheim IV crashed on 28th April 1941, two miles short of the airfield it was trying to reach in North Yorkshire. He was 21.
For Norman’s parents, George and Susan, this was a terrible tragedy but not the first they had experienced as parents. In 1929 their older son George had drowned, aged 16, near Ostend in Belgium. He was with a group of scouts and had saved the life of another scout who was in difficulties in the water, but was later found to have perished himself.
When Norman came home on leave from the Air Force, he used to visit his Aunt Emmie and Uncle Harry. Emmie and Harry had their son Clifford’s wife, Joan, and their children, Ben and Caroline, living with them. Caroline adored Norman. She loved the way he paid attention to her and played with her. One day, she realised that she hadn’t seen him for a long time and thought very hard about why that might be. She asked her mother and grandparents but didn’t get any straight answers. Eventually, after more thought, she came out with it: ‘Norman’s dead, isn’t he?’ The adults had apparently been trying to protect her by not telling her what had happened, and hoping that she would forget him. She didn’t.
In fact, Caroline grieved for Norman for the rest of her life. I know, because I am her daughter and she talked about him often. This photograph was always in her living room. I grew up with the knowledge that this lovely, kind young man had lost his life almost before it had begun.
I am telling Norman’s story because I am acutely aware that living memory of the World Wars is diminishing. As a child, I heard so many stories from my parents and older relatives that the Second World War, at least, seemed very real. My mother was able to pass a lot of these stories on directly to my son, as well. We need to keep telling them, to keep the reality of these losses alive and in focus.
A Bristol Blenheim IV just like Norman’s plane
