Wing Commander T C Carter

This collection contains material relating to the career of Wing Commander Carter as a senior RDF officer during the Second World War. He served in Norway in 1940 and included is a report of a tour to investigate the feasibility of siting bases there. The rest of the material is primarily concerned with his experiences in the Far East. He was in Singapore during the first air raid and involved in the subsequent evacuation, escaping eventually to India. Many of the letters are concerned with the fate of the personnel evacuated from the Far East, their various escape attempts and experience in Japanese POW camps.

Unrestricted

Wing Commander Carter served with Radio (radar) Branch throughout the War in several theatres of war. He was sent out to Singapore in December 1940 to command the Radar Installation and Maintenance Unit and in May 1941 took over from the Command Radio officer who was invalided home after a nervous breakdown. Carter's papers reflect his discontent with the civil and military authorities in Singapore and Whitehall in facing the Japanese threat, especially the failure to use the 55 minutes of warning before the first air raid to sound the sirens and enforce the black out.