Northampton - Sidney Cox's boyhood homesites..

As always, click a photo to view a larger image.

All of these locations are in the area of city center, Northampton. The present day city center likely comprised the whole of Northampton in the late 1800s.

In 1881, the William Cox family lived at 61 Cyril Street.

61 Cyril Street, the black door on the left.

By 1891, the William Cox family had moved just around the block to 21 Edith Street. Thus, Sidney was born in 1887 at either 61 Cyril or 21 Edith.

21 Edith Street, the black door on the left.

By 1901, the William Cox family had moved several blocks away to 1 Derby Road. Sidney would have been 14 years of age at this time.

1 Derby Road, the brown unit on the left.

For research and other reasons, it would be helpful to know the church parish of the family. We are not sure which parish they were a part of; however, all of the residential addresses would lead me to believe they likely were part of the St Giles Parish. If so, they would have attended the St Giles Church (of England). It is a beautiful church, over 1000 years old. We searched the church graveyard for Cox graves, to no avail.

Brafield-On-The-Green....

ancestral home to my great great grandmother, Maria Clarke Cox. She was born in 1823 and married Reuben Cox in 1845. Reuben and Maria raised 10 children in Hartwell, including William Cox, father of Sidney Cox.

As always, click on a photo to view a larger image.






The village green


The Church of St Laurence - a magnificent old church in this very tiny village.

Hartwell - home of Reuben & Maria Clarke Cox...

these were my great great grandparents, parents of Sidney Cox's father, William Cox. William was born in 1852.

As always, click on a photo to view an enlarged image.








St John The Baptist Church


We searched the graveyard for Coxes, and talked to some locals about the family name, but came up empty.


Hartwell is adjacent to The Salcey Forest, a medieval hunting ground.


Interestingly, the address of Reuben Cox on one census in the late 1800s, was "Rose and Crown." We found "Rose and Crown" - the local pub established in the mid-17th century. Not sure what that means, but we got a good chuckle out of it, and enjoyed a pint with the local pubmaster.


The pub had some wonderful period photographs from the late 1800s.


The only comment about Hartwell that I have ever picked up in oral histories is that Reuben and Maria Cox lived, "in a thatched hut in Hartwell." This photograph from the pub might indicate what that life was like.

The Midlands - Northampton

We left Norwich last Monday bound for Northampton. It is in the central part of England known as "The Midlands".


Northampton is where my grandfather, Sidney Cox was born in 1887, the youngest of 4 children born to William and Harriet Oldham Cox. William Cox was born in the small hamlet south of Northampton by the name of Hartwell. William was one of 10 children born to Reuben and Maria Clarke Cox. All were born in Hartwell. Maria Clarke was from the nearby village of Brafield-On-The-Green.


My grandfather, Sidney left England in 1907 as a 19 year-old young man to immigrate to Canada. He never saw his parents again, and only visited England one time in his adult life in 1960 - an occasion where he saw his two older sisters, Louise and Clarice after 53 years.


Thus, our family knows relatively little about Northampton. It is a mid-sized town historically known as production center for leather goods, primarily shoes. Indeed, my great grandfather was a shoemaker. I pieced together a story while here that Sidney worked in a tanning and currying factory in the outlying suburb of Kettering as a 14 year-old boy. Kettering is 14 miles from city center where the family lived, so he didn't commute. He likely lived in Kettering in connection with that job - at 14! This historical background gives Northampton a bit of a stark, industrial feel as opposed to the other cities that we have visited. It lacks some of the charm we found elsewhere. But, we were here to learn about family history.


One important factor for learning about life in that era is to understand the church (of England) parishes, and the parish records that are available. We have certain clues that indicate that the William Cox family were active parishioners, but we're not sure in which parish. Searching parish records as opposed to civil records is a fruitful source of archival data. I spent a little time trying to break the code here, but time did not permit. Based upon the family's known addresses, we visited 2-3 churches that they likely attended. These massive churches, built 1000 years ago in many instances, are literally within a few blocks of each other because their parishioners in bygone eras all walked.


My next posts will share a few photographs from our visits in and around Northampton.

And finally from Norwich.....

Before we leave this part of our trip - I've talked a lot about my Dad and his experience with Eighth Air Force here. It's only right that you meet him.

He was Staff Seargeant John Henderson Cox. He was an ordained minister in 1943, exempt from the draft when he volunteered for service. After a few twists and turns during his training process, he ended up an aerial gunner. He manned a 50 caliber machine gun from the waist window of a heavy bomber warding off the fighters of the German Luftwaffe.

Boot camp - Keesler Field, Biloxi. Lower right.

Air training - Southern Illinois Normal University. Carbondale, Illinois.

Gunnery School - Laredo, Texas

With some of the crew - Long Island, NY. Before boarding Queen Mary. 2nd from left. At the home of Pilot Ralph Sheringham.

At Old Buckenham, winter of 1944 - one of the coldest winters on record. If you've read about the harsh conditions for the Battle of the Bulge (Dec 44 thru Jan 45), you know what they were going through.

Biking through the English countryside - Spring 1944.

Taken in London while on a 48-hour pass.

The Sheringham Crew - celebrates completion of last mission. Dad on the right.

The crew with supporting ground personnel - Dad lower right.

The enlisted men of the crew. There were 4 officers. Dad second from right.

Lastly from Norwich.....

I must tell you about our first evening in Norwich. We reunited with our friends that we met aboard Queen Mary - Nigel and Jeanette Ragan. All four of us really have enjoyed each other's company. They are simply "lovely" people.

On Friday, they took us for a little driving tour of the area and then to their home for lunch. They live outiside of Norwich in a country house that is 150 years old (if my memory serves). It is like out of a book. They then took us to the area north of Norwich where the river flows by. Nigel had leased a small boat and we cruised the river section known as "The Broads". We had champagne and strawberries and cream onboard while we puddled up the river. We stopped for a pint at a riverside pub and then finished up with a gourmet dinner at "The Broad Hotel."

It was a most enjoyable afternoon with two of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure to know.

Cambridge to Norwich - Home of Eighth Air Force

On Thursday, we drove east from Cambridge into the region of England known as East Anglia. It is a rural area with very flat farmland and is geographically positioned near the European continent, just north and west of Germany. This suited it ideally for the deployment of Eighth Air Force in WWII - a huge island airbase from which the Americans could launch their daylight, high-altitude strategic bombing campaign. During 1942, the beautiful English countryside and manor estates were transformed into hundreds of air bases. Eighth Air Force had over 100 heavy-bomber bases alone. It is said that one difficulty that the pilots and navigators had upon returning from their missions was figuring out which base was theirs.

As I have mentioned, I have done a significant amount of research of my father's war experience over the last 4-5 years, and to say I was looking forward to this part of the trip is a mild understatement.

The largest city in East Anglia is the ancient city of Norwich. All of the American air bases were scattered throughout East Anglia, many situated in and around Norwich. Norwich has become synonomous in history with Eighth Air Force. Dad's base was at the very small village of Old Buckenham, just outside the slightly larger village of Attleborough. These are located about 15 miles southwest of Norwich. His unit was the 453rd Bombardment Group - Heavy - a base housing the famed B-24 heavy bomber, The Liberator. B-24s were the sucessor to the better known B-17 heavy bomber, The Flying Fortress.

Old Buckenham was a rural village of 200-300 people before the development of the base. English farmers surrendered their fields for construction of the bases. Within a matter of months, a base would develope with a base population of 3000 people, including all of the support personnel. The English villagers were astonished.

They were living in poverty and under rationing. The American servicemen had more money than they could imagine. To that point, their only image of Americans were the movie stars that they had seen from time to time, so they thought that all of these servicemen were celebrities. Never mind the fact that England was on the brink of defeat, and the Americans were their last best hope.

The English girls and women set their sights - indeed many of them returned to America as warbrides. I met a 63 year old lady at a pub in Old Buckenham who was the illegitimate child of an unknown American serviceman. She kidded with me that I might be her half-brother. All I could say is that I couldn't say that I wasn't.

Dad sailed to England aboard Queen Mary in mid-October 1944. QM anchored in the Firth of Clyde, outside of Glasgow, Scotland and the troops onboard were loaded aboard troop trains bound for their particular destination. Dad would have traveled by train across the breadth of Great Britain to arrive at Norwich. From their it was a short trainride to Attleborough and an even shorter truck ride to the base at Old Buckenham.

From Old Buck, he began flying missions with his crew in November 1944 aboard a variety of B-24s. By mid-April, 1945, he had completed 31 combat missions, all of which were over Nazi Germany. Germany surrendered in early May, and Dad was still in England on VE Day, May 8, 1945. I can only speculate about how he celebrated, but he was indeed part of a historic event.

In mid-June he and a group of servicemen returned to the U.S. aboard the B-24 Liberator "Normandy Queen." The B-24 heavy bomber was the most-produced plane in aviation history, but was immediately obsolete with the end of the war. The airwar over Europe in World War II was the only airwar of its kind in history and there will never be another.

Just as soon as the war ended, the troops left and the bases began to be dismantled with astonishing speed. Before long, the villages returned to their agricultural uses and the villagers were left with memories and stories of their beloved Americans.

I was not sure what I'd find at Old Buck. I've read many different accounts of Old Buck today. But, if I found nothing, that was going to be OK with me. I just wanted to walk the ground where the base had been.

But, we had an amazing 3-4 days visiting sites in Norwich, Attleborough and Old Buckenham - some sites of which have not changed all that much. And, while it's dwindling over the years, there are still many memorials to see and old timers who are profoundly thankful for the role of the American flyers and happy to talk about it.

My next post will be a series of pictures with captions that I took over these few days. It was one of the highlights of my life.

Pictures from Old Buckenham......

As always, click on a picture to see a larger image.

Old Buckenham then. The perimeter runway strip surrounded 3 runways in the shape of a triangle. The figure 8s were known as "hardstands", basically parking areas for the heavy bombers.

Old Buckenham now. One can still see the impression left by the old base. It is still an operating airfield with one short runway for small planes - lower left. If you look at the enlarged image you will note that the new runway has an older looking extension. That extension is a piece of the original wartime runway. The perimeter has been basically destroyed down to a width about the size of a small road, but it is still visible from the air.

The entrance into today's airfield.

A small memorial to what was here.

Looking out across what used to be a massive wartime airfield and base.

Part of the old wartime runway. Now an extension of the new runway.

The local village children swarmed to the airfields. The airmen were their heros. On the left is a 10-year old boy, Pat Ramm with a friend of his and an American airman. A B-24 can be seen in the background.

In the middle is Pat Ramm today. He spent an afternoon with Sandy and me taking us around the village and airfield. He is a noted local historian of the 453rd Bomb Group and Old Buckenham. His home is a literal museum.

Not much remains of the old base infrastructure. It's quite sad to think about.

This is the old perimeter runway, now cobbled down to the width of an automobile. During wartime, B-24s would leave their hard stands and line up nose to tail around the perimeter. When the mission was launched, one by one they would turn onto the runway and take off in succession - an amazing sight to see.

This is where the perimeter on the right, intersects with the main runway on the left.

This is William Leyselle, the manager of the current airfield. These are pictures of the airfield - then and now.


The 453rd Bomb Group was broken down into 4 bomb squads. Dad was in the 732nd Bomb Squad. This was the 732nd hardstand area, now just a grass field. From this spot, Dad climbed aboard a B-24 31 times. Thankfully, he climbed out 31 times.

This was the B-24, "El Flacko". Dad flew a couple of missions onboard. It was shot down on a subsequent mission.

A pub in the village that was a popular hangout for the servicemen. We met a lot of friendly locals there who were happy to share their memories.

The train station at Attleborough - it looked about the same then when Dad rolled in aboard a troop train.

The train station in Norwich. Not much has changed.

This is the ancient cathedral in Norwich. Sandy and I attended service there on Sunday morning. It was truly awesome. It was built 1000 years ago.