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Some other related items available from this site. | ||||
  White-out at Breighton - Tribute to No.78 Squadron by Ivan Berryman. |   Out of the Night - The First To Go In by Robert Taylor. |   Lancaster VC by Graeme Lothian. |   Operation Mallard by Ivan Berryman. | |
| Signatures on these products | |
| *The value given for each signature has been calculated by us based on the historical significance and rarity of the signature and is for the unmatted version where available. Values of many pilot signatures have risen in recent years and will likely continue to rise as they become more and more rare. | |
| Name | Info |
  Flt Lt Eric Kemp DFC (deceased) *Signature Value : £45 Editions signed : Kemp / Leckie signature edition of 25 prints. | Kemp, Eric (Flt Lt Eric Kemp DFC (deceased)) Flew with 578 Squadron on Halifaxes |
  Pilot Officer Bill Leckie, AEM, KW (deceased) Died : 2021 *Signature Value : £50 Editions signed : Kemp / Leckie signature edition of 25 prints. | Leckie, Bill (Pilot Officer Bill Leckie, AEM, KW (deceased)) Bill Leckie was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 23rd June 1921, joined the Royal Air Force in June 1941 and went to St Johns Wood on the 15th of September 1941. Bill Leckie started his flying training on the 4th of April 1942 at Stoke Orchard near Cheltenham in Tiger Moths. He went to Canada on the 26th of May 1942 at Monkton for further training until June before going on to Detroit and on to Pensacola, Florida on the 1st October 1942, flying Stearman and Catalina Flying boats until 31st March 1943 when Bill went to Prince Edward Island for further training. Back in the UK, Bill was expecting to join a Coastal Command squadron flying Catalinas but was transferred to Bomber Command and a conversion course on to Whitleys at Kinloss Scotland on the 22nd of February 1944, and joined 77 Squadron at Full Sutton on the 19th July 1944 on Halifaxes, flying 6 bombing missions, one being the bombing of the Flying Bomb Factory at Russesheim, before transferring to 148 Special Duties squadron on the 19th of August 1944 and going to Brindisi. Pilot Officer Bill Leckie was involved in the dropping of supplies (guns, ammunition and food) to the Polish during the Warsaw uprising. This was a costly mission and many aircraft were lost. (Bill was flying Halifax JD319 (FS - G). For his efforts in air-dropping supplies during this period, Bill Leckie was awarded the Polish Cross of Valour (KW). Pilot Officer Bill Leckie was also the Pilot for Operation Ebensburg on Sunday 8th April 1945. Halifax B.II Series 1 (Special) JP254 of 148 Special Duties Squadron carried out the misison to drop four SOE agents and their equipment near Alt Aussee salt mine in the Austrian Alps. Thier mission was to secure and protect 6,755 items of the worlds greatest works of art that had been looted and stored by the Germans as they swept across Europe. With the allied forces closing in, the Germans had planned to blow up the entire store to prevent the artworks from falling into the hands of the liberators. Once on the ground, the four agents linked up with local resistance fighters and the mine and its valuable contents were eventually secured, the explosives made safe and the entire cache taken into the safe keeping of the 80th US Infantry Division as the German occupation of Europe crumbled. Bill Leckie stayed with 148 Squadron until 18th May 1945 when he was posted to Cairo with 216 Squadron (Dakotas) of Transport Command and on 1st January 1946 to 78 Squadron flying Dakotas again until 1st June 1946 , finally leaving the RAF on the 18th September 1946. He died in October 2021. |
 Wing Commander George Walter Johnson (deceased) Died : 2004 *Signature Value : £40 Editions signed : Johnson signature edition of 102 prints. | Johnson, George Walter (Wing Commander George Walter Johnson (deceased)) Wing Commander George Walter 'Johnnie' Johnson flew more than 60 operations against targets in Germany before becoming one of the Royal Air Force's most experienced test pilots. After leaving the RAF, he embarked on a career in the aviation industry and played a leading role in the success of overseas sales of the Harrier and Hawk jets. Johnson joined No 158 Squadron, flying Halifax bombers, at the height of the Battle of Berlin early in 1944. On his first operation over the 'Big City', the radio communications with his two gunners failed immediately after take-off. He could justifiably have returned to base; but, conscious of the stigma of being thought 'LMF' (lacking moral fibre) on his first operation, he decided to press on to the target, using light signals to keep in contact with his crew. Flying the same aircraft the next night, the fault recurred. Reflecting that he had got away with it the night before, he stayed with the bomber stream and dropped his bombs. By the end of March, Johnson and his crew had flown 16 operations and losses had been so high - 16 crews in four operations - that they were the senior crew on the squadron. They were then transferred to the Pathfinder Force to fly Lancasters with No 635 Squadron at Downham Market. Priorities for Bomber Command had changed in the build-up to the D-Day landings, and supply dumps, marshalling yards and transportation targets in France were attacked. Returning from one target early on June 15, Johnson and his crew were crossing the Thames Estuary at low level 'when something overtook us going very quickly and apparently on fire'. They had seen one of the first V-1s launched against London. The Pathfinder force marked targets for the main bomber attack supporting the breakout from Normandy. Johnson flew as a marker against the V-1 sites in the Pas de Calais and the huge construction site at Wizernes before the bombing offensive against Germany was resumed. His aircraft was hit by flak over Kiel and then by night fighters. Despite the damage to his Lancaster, he landed safely. By the end of October, Johnson had completed 62 operations, including 46 as a Pathfinder. He was awarded a Bar to the DFC he had been given earlier in the year for his 'high standard of courage, determination and devotion to duty'. The son of a civil servant, George Walter Johnson (always known as Johnnie) was born on January 8 1923 at Camberley, Surrey. He was educated at Erith County School, Kent, and joined the RAF on his 18th birthday. Johnson trained as a pilot in the United States before returning to England where, to his great disappointment, he was sent to be a flying instructor on single-engine aircraft. After a year trying to persuade the authorities to send him to an operational squadron, he was expecting to be posted to fighters, but found himself training on four-engine bombers. After completion of his bomber tours, Johnson was sent to Transport Command before joining the RAF Mission to Australia and New Zealand to fly Dakotas. He first went to Canada to collect a new aircraft and then flew it from Montreal, via the Pacific islands, to Sydney. For the next year he flew freight and passengers between Australia and the Pacific staging posts occupied by the British and Commonwealth forces as the Japanese retreated; he flew into Hong Kong shortly after the Japanese surrender. After a spell as the personal pilot to the RAF Chief of Staff (Australia), he returned to England and joined No 6 Course at the Empire Test Pilots' School. He was just 23, and had flown 2,500 hours on more than 20 different types of aircraft. Johnson spent the next three years at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down during which he tested some of the early jet fighters and bombers. He conducted the hot weather trials of the Vampire jet fighter at Khartoum. During a test flight to assess the efficiency of an airventilated suit being developed to keep pilots cool, the cockpit heating system stuck on hot, and Johnson just managed to land before passing out. The doctors lifted him clear of the cockpit and measured his body temperature before thinking of giving him some water. Johnson returned to England to learn that he had been posted to Namao, Alberta, to join the Winter Experimental Flight to conduct cold weather trials. During two years in Canada, Johnson flew many aircraft to assess performance in extreme cold temperatures. This often involved taking aircraft to airfields in the Yukon and to Churchill on Hudson Bay where outside temperatures reached minus 45 degrees centigrade. After spending another three years at the Empire Test Pilots' School as an instructor, Johnson was sent to the RAF Staff College, Bracknell, then became a staff officer at Fighter Command. In February 1962 he was appointed to command the Operations Wing at RAF Tengah, Singapore, the home of four RAF squadrons of Hunters, Javelins and Canberras and a RNZAF bomber squadron. In November 1963 the generally even tenor of station life overseas was interrupted by the 'confrontation' with Indonesia. With detachments of his squadrons in Malaysia, Kuching and Labuan, Johnson had a hectic time, commenting that 'confrontation' became 'a way of life, never reaching a climax but causing a good deal of frustration, proving that 'action stations' with no subsequent action is extremely debilitating'. On coming home, Johnson joined the staff of the RAF Staff College at Andover, where the student body was half British and half 'visiting officers'. The close association with many foreign air force personnel was to be important for his future. Johnson retired from the RAF in 1969, having flown more than 100 types of aircraft, in order to join the Hawker Siddeley Aviation marketing team, led by Bill Bedford, the former chief test pilot, whom he eventually succeeded. Sadly on the 28th July 2004 Wing Commander G W Johnnie Johnson died aged 81 (Telegraph obituary) |
| Aircraft Related to This Print |
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Signature(s) value alone : £95
Signature(s) value alone : £40