Willem Jacob van Stockum - What Air Force Was He In? (Comment)

Dr. Robert Wack signing his book, Time Bomber
at a book fair in suburban Baltimore.

Dr. Robert Wack, author of Time Bomber - a Five Star book on Amazon based on five reviews - recently reported that he had received multiple inquiries from readers of his book.

The readers were curious about details of some aspects of the life of Willem van Stockum, the bomber pilot and time-travel thinker who is the subject of the book.

One question was the flag under which Willem van Stockum flew as a bomber pilot. His life story is accurately told by Dr. Wack except for some time-travel additions that are acknowledged in a note to the reader.

The reader asked whether Willem flew for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) or the British RAF. Here is Dr. Wack's response:

The answer is, both. How could this be? Part of the answer lies in the circumstances of Willem’s enlistment, as well as the relationship between Canada and Britain as part of the Commonwealth, and lastly the specific needs of the war time Bomber Command. Willem initially enlisted with the Canadian RAF purely for logistical reasons: it was the closest place he could go to get into the war. 

In 1940 and early 1941 (before Pearl Harbor), there already were Americans frustrated with isolationism traveling north to enlist, and Willem took that path, leading him to the new recruit depot in Toronto. Canada had already been supplying England with food and weapons since the outbreak of the war in 1939. The relationship between Canada and England was still very close, despite the Statute of Westminster in 1931 granting autonomy to all the Dominions of the Commonwealth. The Canadian RAF assembled units and sent them to England as separate units under British command, and it was one of those that Willem wanted to join. 

However, his value as an instructor was of more interest to his Canadian military superiors, so they repeatedly denied his requests to be assigned to combat units. Eventually, he applied for transfer directly to the British RAF, which was finally granted, resulting in his transfer and assignment to No. 10 squadron at Melbourne Station, a few miles southeast of York. The British RAF took volunteers and assigned units from anywhere willing to send them. No. 10 Squadron was a particularly diverse group, with members from all the occupied countries, as well as other Commonwealth nations. Willem wrote home about other Dutch members of the squadron, as well as French, South African, Canadian, and even American flyers. It was a tumultuous time, with citizens of many countries all joining efforts to defeat the Nazis, regardless of nationality or native origins.

Comment

I would like to add two things to this admirably thorough response:

1. Willem's gravesite is the only one of the 14 gravesites with a non-RAF gravestone. There were other flyers from Australia and Canada - the RAF was desperate for experienced pilots and other airmen then because so many airmen were being shot down and the training period for a pilot is long. Although Willem was flying under RCAF and RAF colors, he was a Dutch citizen (he was in the process of getting American citizenship). My mother, sadly, arrived with her husband and children in 1954 to find there were 13 gravestones and only a wooden cross for her brother, because the Dutch hadn't gotten around to putting in a gravestone. (I have posted her diary entry for that day, December 26, and the next day.) Willem now has a proper gravestone, as well as a monument to him and his crew contributed by the French people who live in the area. To add to the confusion about Willem van Stockum's national identity, he received his undergraduate education at Trinity College, Dublin, and his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Edinburgh.

2. No. 10 Squadron has an illustrious history. In 2015 it celebrates the 100th anniversary of its creation.

RAF No. 10 Squadron to Celebrate Its Centennial in 2015

The 10 Squadron Halifax Mark II, Series 1 at RAF Leeming, December 1941 - 
the plane flown by the two RAF crews shot down over Laval, June 10, 1944.

The No. 10 Squadron of the Royal Air Force will be 100 years old on January 1, 2015.

The No. 10 has been repurposed throughout the last century from observation to bombing, transport and aerial refueling.

During World War II, the No. 10 was a bomber squadron. It lost two Halifax bombers to anti-aircraft fire  over Laval, France on June 10, 1944, four days after D-Day.

One plane was piloted by F/O Henderson, an Australian, the other by a Dutchman who had been teaching at the University of Maryland and was  flying for the Royal Canadian Air Force, F/O van Stockum (subject of the novel Time Bomber). The 14 crew members of the two planes have been memorialized by two monuments outside of Laval unveiled on June 10, 2014, on the 70th anniversary of their deaths.

These two planes were less than 2 percent of the 128 Halifax planes lost by the Squadron during the war's 300 missions. With seven airmen on each plane, that would be 896 flyers killed, or about three per mission. The loss of two planes, 14 crewmen, on one mission would be four times the average.

 The 10th Squadron currently flies the Airbus Voyager, a transport and tanker.

First World War

1915-1919. No. 10 was formed in 1915, as part of the Royal Flying Corps, in 1915 at Farnborough Airfield, Hampshire, UK. It served as a spotter and bomber in France.

1928-1941. In 1928 it was reconstituted as a night bomber unit on Hyderabads at RAF Upper Heyford. It moved to RAF Boscombe Down in 1931 and later on to RAF Dishforth in 1937 to form part of the newly created No. 4 Group of RAF Bomber Command, using including Hinaidis, Vickers Virginias and Handley Page Heyfords.


Second World War 1941-1945


The squadron began in the Second World War as the first unit equipped with the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley.

The squadron remained a part of No. 4 Group throughout the war,re-equipping with the Halifax at the end of 1941.

In mid-July 1940 the squadron moved to RAF Leeming, Yorkshire. In mid-1942 they moved to RAF Melbourne, Yorkshire.

Since World War II

1945-50. No. 10 spent four years with Transport Command, flying Dakotas in India. After a one-year 1947-48 disbandment, No. 10 took over No. 238 Squadron and operated in Europe, taking part in the Berlin Airlift.

1953-1964. No. 10 Squadron reverted to its original bomber role, taking part in the Suez Crisis, equipped upon reformation at RAF Scampton with Martin B-57 Canberras, the first jet planes to drop bombs during combat. After 1968, the squadron was reformed at RAF Cottesmore, flying Handley Page Victors. The squadron's VC10s have also been used to fly the British Royal Family and top government ministers around the world. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair reverted to the VC10 for sensitive flights, such as during his diplomacy to Pakistan and after the 9/11 attacks.

No. 10's Vickers VC-10 C1 in 1977.

1966-2005.The squadron received 14 new Vickers VC10 C1s, which were named after the airmen who had been awarded the Victoria Cross. No. 10 thereby reverted to air transport at RAF Fairford and then RAF Brize Norton. The C1 flew 1,326 sorties during the Gulf War, carrying 50 bombs weighing 1,000 lbs each for the Tornado GR1 force. It took part in most other operations including the 1982 Falklands War and the 2003 war in Iraq.

2011-present. With the closure of RAF Lyneham and the transfer of the RAF's Hercules force to Brize Norton, No. 10 Squadron has been reformed as the first operator of the new Airbus Voyager.

WILLEM VAN STOCKUM | Sci Fi Bio: "Time Bomber"

The cover of Time Bomber.

May 19, 2014–The print edition of a time-travel novel by Robert P. Wack has just been published, titled Time Bomber.  (An earlier edition was available, only as an eBook, under a different name and cover.)

Time Bomber is based on the life and research of a real person, Dr. Willem Jacob van Stockum, son of Captain Bram van Stockum and Olga Emily Boissevain.

Dr. van Stockum, a brilliant University of Maryland mathematics professor who had previously worked with Einstein at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, becomes frustrated with American indifference about the war in Europe before Pearl Harbor. He abandons his promising academic career to join, first, the Royal Canadian Air Force and then a bomber pilot in Britain's Royal Air Force. Van Stockum flies RAF missions over Nazi-occupied France, behind the Normandy lines, before and after D-Day. On June 10, 1944, his plane is shot down.

All this is factual.

In the novel, van Stockum is not killed when his plane is shot down. Instead, he is rescued by stranded American paratroopers. While they fight for survival in the French countryside, they meet up with ruthless French Resistance fighters and two strangers who are not what they appear to be.

Willem’s pioneering academic work on time travel and Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity pose intriguing “what if?” questions – which earned him a chapter in a book on time-travel theoreticians – compelling him to face the implications of his academic work and the consequences of choices in a universe of infinite possibilities. These questions can be posed and answered only in a sci-fi context, which is what attracted Wack to the subject.

The paperback book, nearly 400 pages, is published by Boissevain Books and can be purchased from Amazon USA for less than $12.50 plus shipping. The book can be purchased from Amazon UK for £8.19, with Free Delivery in the UK on orders that exceed £10.

TIME BOMBER | Robert Wack Writes about Willem van Stockum

Flying Captain Willem van Stockum (front, center) and crew,
at RAF bomber air base in Melbourne, Yorkshire..

My new friend Dr. Robert Wack is near completion of his new novel, Time Bomber, which I would describe as a science fiction-military history novel.

He called me in 2010 when I was working in Washington, DC, for the Joint Economic Committee. He has an interest in science fiction, especially the concept of time travel. He found out that my Uncle Willem van Stockum was a pioneer in applying science to the concept. Willem was the first to spell out - in a way that caught the imagination of other physicists - the implications of Einstein's special relativity equations for time travel. He pointed out that the equations lead to time-like curves.

William van Stockum. He was detailed to the RAF
from the RCAF. But he was a Dutch citizen. He is
also claimed by the USA and identified as Irish
(family) and Scottish (Ph.D. from Edinburgh).

Willem has first place post-Einstein in a recent book on Time Travel. His bio is on Wikipedia and under his name at www.boissevain.us.

May 17, 2014: Exciting news. The book can now be ordered via Amazon. My wife Alice has read it  and she shares my love of the book. The biographical aspect of the book is authentic and the science-fiction aspect raises interesting questions that support what Willem said in his widely quoted letter to his mother, "A Soldier's Creed."