Norman Joseph Giblin

Norman Joseph Giblin was born around 1921 and grew up in Withington, Manchester, the son of John Joseph and Kate Giblin. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and trained as an observer — the combined navigator and bomb-aimer of a Blenheim crew. By early 1941 he was posted to No. 21 Squadron, which operated Bristol Blenheim IVs under Coastal Command on anti-shipping and bombing sorties over enemy-held waters. In June 1941 Giblin demonstrated the qualities that would earn him a decoration: during a bombing attack on Bremen, his precise navigation brought the aircraft to the target despite hostile conditions, and when enemy fighters pressed home an attack on the return leg he helped see the crew safely back to base. For this and similar conduct, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, the notice appearing in the London Gazette on 29 July 1941. He did not live to receive the medal: on 23 July 1941, flying Blenheim IV V6225 from Manston with Flight Lieutenant H. Waples and Sergeant A. W. Handley, his aircraft was brought down by enemy action over the Low Countries coast; Giblin was killed, aged twenty. He is buried at Flushing (Vlissingen) Northern Cemetery in the Netherlands, Row A, Grave 20.