Archie Jackson: in memoriam

One of the amazing things about writing this blog is that it’s put me in contact with people who either knew my father or who can fill in missing details. Recently, the daughter of Archibald William Jackson (Flt Lt NZ411903 RNZAF) left several comments and told me that her Dad was 92 years old but not very well.

She showed her Dad the photo below:

I included this photo in the Magnificent Seven blog post and Archie Jackson is identified as the pilot fifth from the left (on the immediate right of Dad, who is in the middle). Dedicated blog reader, Pierre, also confirmed this.

Although not well, on seeing the photo above, Archie recounted stories of their time together in Canada during training, then his time in India and Ceylon. In recent years, Archie Jackson was living in Rotorua, New Zealand but, sadly, he passed away on August 11, 2013. His obituary is here and I learnt that Archie married a woman named Shirley, same as my father did – Shirley Hyams was my mother’s maiden name.

I’m so very pleased that, in his final days, Archie was able to relive some of the memories he shared with my father and his own memories of his WWII experience. Another WWII hero has passed. His daughter is going to see if she can locate his logbook. It would be wonderful if there were entries that mention my father.

One puzzle though: Archie’s daughter has identified her father as being third from the LEFT in the photo above (i.e. in the position of NZ411923 Mildon, Vincent John). Possibly, she means third from the right? If she’s reading this post, perhaps she could confirm.