In July last year I wrote here about a 463 Squadron Flight Engineer named Sergeant Peter Taylor, and his sister-in-law, Joni, who has been trying to find relatives of Sgt Taylor’s crew. I published the names of the rest of the crew on the blog, in the hope that it might attract a passing Google search.
And it did.
At the end of January I received a blog comment from a lady named Susan Little, the niece and God-daughter of the only survivor from the crew, bomb aimer Flight Sergeant Tom Malcolm. It’s taken a little bit of too-ing and fro-ing but Joni and Susan are now in touch with each other. Susan’s sent copies of a photo of Tom and his crew:
The men wearing the white lifejackets are Sgt taylor and his crew (the others are their ground crew). Aircrew in the back row, left to right are pilot P/O J.F. Martin, wireless operator F/S G.W. Bateman and bomb aimer F/S Tom Malcolm. In the front row, left to right, airmen are flight engineer Sgt Peter Taylor, navigator W/O Bernard Kelly, mid-upper gunner F/S L.G.L. Hunter and F/S Bramwell Barber.
There’s also this photo from Susan, showing some of the crew outside a pub:
Bramwell Barber is on the far left, Tom Malcolm is next to him. The airman in the middle is unidentified. Next along is Peter Taylor, and on the far right is skipper J.F. Martin.
Once again, the power of the internet is demonstrated. Two people, on opposite sides of the planet, brought together simply through a little bit of curiosity, a blog post and the wonders of the Google search algorithm. I’m happy I was able to help. And finding Susan has inspired Joni to continue her search for the rest of her brother in law’s crew.
I’d call that another satisfied customer!
© 2013 Adam Purcell
(Edited 13MAR13 with identification of Peter Taylor in photos following correspondence from Joni)
Something Very Big 
This is my third attempt to post a comment and my contact details fo Joni/Susan but after I finish typing, both previous attempts have vanished into the ether. So I’ll just try to put down the essentials again
Tom Malcolm was my parents closest friend and he and my father who were both ex RAAF worked together in aviation meteorology for over 30 years. Both our families lived in the same area and dad and Tom socialised, fished, shot ducks, mushroomed, ferreted and played cribbage with my grandfather together. He let me know some aspects of his tour and shootdown etc when i was mature because he’d known me all my life and knew I was mad about aviation and knew a bit about aircrew and bomber command etc. I’m happy to talk Susan and Joni if they are interested. Have tried to contact Susan directly through Tom’s daughter but she has moved and her new number is not answering.
G’day Patrick,
Thanks for your comment – I’ve passed your email address on to Joni and Susan.
Cheers,
Adam
My name is Peter Taylor I was named after my Uncle as the next child in the family to be born after his death. I now live in Australia and In fact have Peters medals that were sent to me From My cousin Michael who lives in The USA
Hello Peter,
Lovely to hear from you. This post (and others along the same lines) have been quite successful in the last few years in finding family of various members of Peter Taylor’s crew. Send me an email (see the “contact me” link above) and I can pass them your details if you’d like.
Adam