Orwell’s Flight?

David Legg wonders

How did Orwell Travel from the Continent for Eileen’s Funeral?
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How did George Orwell travel from the continent back to England on learning the tragic news that his wife, Eileen, had died suddenly at a Newcastle hospital on 29 March 1945? It’s a question that Orwellians have long sought to answer. Orwell had been in hospital himself in Cologne whilst on a reporting assignment for David Astor’s Observer when he received the news and a letter he sent from Paris on 1 April indicates he was in the French capital then.

Buried in the National Archives there is a document which perhaps provides the vital information about Orwell’s flight. National Archive file AIR 27/296/32 contains the Operations Record Book (ORB) for 24 Squadron, RAF. This was a transport squadron and, during the period in question, it was based at RAF Hendon, London ‘engaged in providing short-range VIP flights, returning many important people and royalty to their liberated countries’ (see Coastal, Support and Special Squadrons of the RAF and Their Aircraft, by J.D.R. Rawlings, Janes, 1982). The squadron flew Douglas Dakota twin-engine transport aircraft. British war correspondents were accorded the status of captain (indeed, Orwell was proudly wearing the captain’s uniform when he arrived at Hotel Scribe, in Paris, at the start of his assignment in mid-February). Only the names of air officers and their equivalent were recorded in the ORB although MPs, usually in a party, were also listed as well as occasional foreign royalty and there were a few other unidentified VIPs.

The 24 Squadron ORB lists a flight on 1 April 45 using Dakota serial number FZ629 piloted by Flt Lt J. Zorn landing at Hendon at 18:55 after a flight from Paris Le Bourget, via Eindhoven, Netherlands. Unusually, the ORB entry does not list any passenger names or freight (or even ‘empty’) for the flight. That may just be an oversight. The date certainly ties in with the events of GO’s life at that point.

Orwell may well have flown back to the continent too as, following his wife’s funeral in Newcastle on 3 April 1945, he was writing from Paris by 13 April and returned to Germany to continue reporting. There was a 24 Sqn flight from Hendon to Paris Le Bourget listed in the ORB for 13 April 1945 in a Dakota JG637 which arrived at 14:30 with four un-named passengers. This may well have been Orwell’s return flight to France.

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Thanks for Richard Lance Keeble for his editing.

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