RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit

Martin Rhodes Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) for securing the debate and highlighting the role of the RAF unarmed Photographic Reconnaissance Unit during the second world war. The unit made a contribution that deserves to be remembered. As mentioned, it captured more than 26 million images of enemy operations and installations during the war. Without that vital information, the success of operations and, ultimately, the outcome of the second world war could have been very different.

Beyond its strategic impact, the unit also deserves to be commemorated for the extraordinary level of sacrifice made by its members. Records show that the survival rate of unit personnel was proportionally the lowest of the allied aerial units throughout the war. So many lost their lives flying for the unit. Because of the solitary and secretive nature of its missions, some 144 of those lost have no known graves—perhaps making a memorial all the more important.

In my Glasgow North constituency, there were two known pilots from the unit. The first was Wing Commander Lawrence Hugh Strain. Lawrence was born at 14 Berkeley Terrace Lane in Glasgow on 12 November 1876. Little is known of his early life, but by 1913 he was resident in Edinburgh, travelling to London to gain his pilot’s licence at Brooklands, which was issued in May 1913. With the declaration of the first world war, Strain joined the Royal Naval Air Service and served as a seaplane pilot on HMS Ark Royal between 1914 and 1918, seeing service in the Dardanelles, Gallipoli and Salonika. After the first world war, he married Ellen Margaret Howard in 1921 in Sussex. Research into his second world war service is still ongoing, as little information is available, but his name appears in the operational records of the early reconnaissance work carried out by the RAF in the second world war. He passed away after the war, in 1952, in Maybole, Ayrshire.

The second was Flight Lieutenant Alastair Gibb. Alastair was born in 1918 in the Hillhead area of Glasgow, the son of Alexander and Margaret Gibb. Little is known of his early life except that, after joining the RAF, he trained as a pilot and after converting to Spitfires he joined 16 Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, based in liberated Belgium. On 18 September 1944 he was scheduled to fly a reconnaissance sortie, but his Spitfire crashed, for reasons unknown, almost immediately after take-off and 25-year-old Alastair was killed instantly.

Both pilots are examples of the many who worked tirelessly and often alone, risking everything to gather the intelligence that shaped allied strategy and saved countless lives. That is why the planned memorial to the unit is so important. It will serve not just as a memorial to those who gave their lives, but as a lasting tribute to the often-overlooked contributions of those who worked behind the scenes—or, in this case, high above the battlefield. We owe it to them to remember their names, tell their stories and ensure their legacy lives on for generations to come.

War Memorials

Martin Rhodes Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) on securing this important debate on the role of war memorials.

Glasgow North is home to the Western Necropolis, where nearly 500 service personnel from both world wars are laid to rest in Commonwealth war graves. Among them are Canadians, Australians and even American volunteers who served in Commonwealth forces. Their graves are a solemn reminder of Glasgow’s role as a hub of military activity, from shipbuilding on the Clyde to the hospitals that cared for the wounded. The care and preservation of such sites is about not just maintenance but memory and ensuring that the stories of those who served are not lost to time and neglect.

Remembrance must not only look back; it must evolve to reflect the full breadth of our shared history. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Kelvingrove Museum with representatives of Colourful Heritage, which has been closely involved with a new exhibition that highlights the contribution of the more than 4 million British Indian Army soldiers who served in the two world wars. It is a striking and necessary addition to our understanding of those conflicts. Colourful Heritage has already done important work in schools across Scotland, helping young people to engage with this history. It is now taking the next step, with partners, to establish Scotland’s first permanent memorial to the British Indian Army in the grounds of Kelvingrove. Planning permission is in progress, and the design reflects the diversity of those who served: Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and those with no religious faith.

The memorial will also acknowledge the unique connection between Scotland and Force K6, the all-Muslim Punjabi regiment stationed in Scotland, via Dunkirk, during the second world war. Their story, like so many others, deserves a permanent place in our national landscape of remembrance. I hope the Minister can offer support for that initiative. As we reflect today on how we maintain and fund war memorials and support them, it is worth recognising that remembrance is not static; it evolves. It must reflect the full breadth of those who served and sacrificed. That work being done in Glasgow is a meaningful example of that evolution.