RESEARCH into World War Two’s famous bouncing bombs — used by the Dambusters and to attack the German battleship Tirpitz — was organised at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at RAF Helensburgh.

MAEE expert and author Robin Bird, a retired Merseyside newspaper editor whose late father Bob was an MAEE photographer, confirms that the establishment worked closely with Barnes Wallis and 618 Mosquito Squadron in developing the Highball bomb to attack the huge battleship.

A HELENSBURGH man was one of 22 World War Two soldiers who survived the Dunkirk evacuation days earlier but died when their camp in north Cornwall was bombed. 

Gunner William T.Hamilton (right) was just 21 when he perished with his comrades at the Penhale camp on the cliffs near Perranporth, following a strike by a lone German bomber on July 7 1940.

THE founder of the Salvation Army, General William Booth, paid his only visit to Helensburgh in 1910.

The image above, which shows the General at Helensburgh pier, was supplied by Provost Billy Petrie, who received it from a relative in California, Donald Cullen, whose grandfather, Donald Brownlee, was the Salvation Army officer on the extreme right.