Caribbean Aircrew Archive
Launched in 2008, the Caribbean Aircrew Archive is a permanent record of West Indian volunteers who served in the RAF but whose contribution has since been overlooked. It is the collaboration of Grant and Hans Klootwijk, author of Lancaster W4827: Failed to Return, which recounts the fate of Grant and his fellow airmen after their plane was shot down over the Netherlands in 1943. The book is based on research carried out by Klootwijk's father, Joost Klootwijk, who was 11 when the bomber crashed into a farmhouse in his village. With regular updates by surviving aircrew and relatives, as well as by military historians, the online archive has established that West Indians in the RAF numbered roughly 440 and that at least 70 were commissioned and 103 decorated.
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