John Shand McLuckie

Profile

Father
Thomas McLuckie (1871-1944)
unsupported
Mother
Alexandrina Fraser Shand (1876-1944)
unsupported
Spouse
Edna Aston (1921-)
Child +
Iain Fraser McLuckie (1945-)
unsupported
Child +
Keith Aston McLuckie (1953-)
unsupported

Timeline

Birth
[S68]
Sep 27, 1914
uncertain
Death
[S68]
Feb of 1991
uncertain
haemorrhage

Names

Name
John Shand McLuckie
unsupported

Attributes

ID
I20
Gender
Male
Alias
/Jack McLuckie/
unsupported

Sources References

[S68] Index to birth for Scotland, 1914

Shared Note #1

BIRTH: according to information gathered at Lossie in 1995 or 1996, Uncle Jim died 13 September 1986, age 70 [from memorial inscription, I believe]. I was told that his birthday was 18 September and he would have been 71 on that birthday... That makes his year of birth 1915 but that was the year Uncle Jack was born according to Iain McLuckie his son. They were not twins...
His birth is in the 1914 index to birth for Scotland: Drainie 94.

According to Alexandrina, his sister, Jack was the apple of his mother's eye. He was not moody like his father. He served in the RAF for a long time and was awarded the British Empire Medal for shooting down a Japanese plane in Burma. He worked with the Post Office - wires.
According to Robert Shand (born 12/7/1919) "We used to hang about him when he came home in his R.A.F. uniform: he was very smart and all the girls fancied him!" (personal communication, 20/10/1997)

He met his wife, Edna, in Birmingham through Alexandrina when they were all working in a munitions factory.
When first married, Jack and his wife, lived with Alexandrina at Benview, 3 Seatown Road. According to Edna, there was some kind of quarrel and Alexandrina asked them to leave. They left and we were told that the family had lost touch with them. Alexandrina, however, said that Jack had called in on her at Cummingston about 16 years ago (abt. 1980).
The account of the settlement of Helen Shand(d. 1969)'s estate gave an address for Jack in Bexley Heath, Kent. In July 1995, the telephone number was unlisted and was not to be given out under any circumstances. Iain Carter (b. 1942) managed to contact Edna through the police when Elizabeth Carter, Jack's sister, died. He had a long conversation with her.

At their wedding, Jack wore an RAF uniform with an air-crew beret and also what looked like a medal decoration ribbon. Alexandrina McLuckie (born 1917) has a photo of Jack at St. Eval in Cornwall in 1944. St. Eval as a Coastal Command Station flying Liberator aircraft against the U-boats (letter dated 31 July 2000 from David Bett (born 1921)).

Jack's son, Keith, stated in a letter that;
"Dad joined the RAF on 2 September 1935. I believe he and his father did not see eye-to-eye. His service number was 523632 and he did much of his service in India and Burma with 60 sqrn. He went through much of the war there. He was a W/O (warrant officer - flight sergeant). He was wop/ag or is it ag/wop? Air gunner/wireless operator.

I understand from Martin Huggard - his pilot who I met some years ago, just after Dad's death that Dad used to take his gunnery very seriously indeed, and considered use of a shot-gun good practice. I know from chatting to Dad on a number of occasions this was the case. He said that most air gunners never gave the target enough "lead" as us shot-gunners call it. Dad apparently practised every day and in the process used to rid the air field of "shite-hawks" (their name for some sort of carrion crow or other). Martin was obviously very happy about this because the old man saved their necks over the Bay of Bengal by shooting down a type 97 fighter flown by Lt. Colonel T. A. Keo Kato - leader [of] the Japanese fighter forces in the region; he also took out his wing man, but that was only confirmed later.

When Dad spoke to me of it, he was rather sad about it and took no delight in it; he said "them or use". He did tell me the circumstances, however. The Blenheim (not sure about the spelling) was apparently equipped with twin 303 Browning machine guns. The major fault was that they jammed if not kept cleaned and oiled (I've just read an entry for 20 April 1942 where Dad says he's cleaned the Brownings during the day). Also the downward movement was limited to avoid shooting off the top of the tail. Dad said he'd modified this movement limit so that in extremis he could move the guns lower than they should go (probably a major court-marshal offence!) When chased by the type 97's (he always called then Zeroes - but the papers say type 97's) the Blen was on the sea, at "zero feet" to stop the fighters coming up from under. The 97's followed hanging back and out of range and below the fire arc of the guns (know thy enemy - I suppose). Dad fired a burst and then pretended the guns had jammed by frantically recocking etc., etc. The fighter pilots had apparently been waiting for this opportunity and came in for the kill. But at about 400 yards Dad said he just began to lay down fire in their paths. The fire was also much lower than the fighters expected and he short lumps out of his tail. The fire did however rake along the top of Kato's plane. Dad said he saw lumps being ripped out of the plane including the cock-pit, then, he caught the other one. He said they were committed and could not really avoid it. The engagement took place on 22 May 1942.

Dad was released from RAF 20 October 1945.

As to medals etc: Battle of Britain, Atlantic Star, Burma Star, Defence Medal and War Medal.

He returned to UK to join coastal command, I'm not sure of the date; the log book says he was in Far East until 1942, but also suggests he joined 547 sqdn at Tain and St. Eval in 1944, during June sometime - he then flew in Liberators on U boat patrols. In late 45 he joined 108 O.T.U Transport command at Wymeswold.

...He often spoke of Rangoon, Dumdum etc and setting light to u/s air craft in the face of the Jap advance, but I don't really remember all the details." (Letter dated 25 May 2000 from Keith McLuckie to David Bett (I have a copy)).

"My most recent letter from the RAF is that they have no record of Jack McLuckie having received a citation or a medal. So I must conclude that whatever he received it was not made officially to him by perhaps to his pilot who could also be the captain of the aircraft." (Letter dated 14 January 2001 from David Bett to Valerie Carter).

Generations (6)

Immigrant Ancestors are displayed in italics
Ancestors with no parents are displayed in bold

Generation 1
[ 1.01 2] John Shand McLuckie (1914-1991)
Generation 2
[ 1.02 3] Thomas McLuckie (1871-1944)	LKS-SCT-MRY
[ 2.01 4] Alexandrina Fraser Shand (1876-1944)	MRY--MRY
Generation 3
[ 1.03 5] Thomas McLuckie (1839-1878)	STG-LKS-DNB
[ 2.02 7] Robert Shand (1829-1906)	MRY--MRY
[ 3.01 6] Catherine McGill (1845-<1921)
[ 4.01 8] Elizabeth Fraser (1839-1936)	MRY
Generation 4
[ 1.04 9] James McLuckie (~1803-1882)	STG-LKS
[ 2.03 11] John Shand (1796-1881)	MRY
[ 3.02* ] William McGill (~1810->1866)
[ 4.02 13] James Fraser (~1810-1889)	MRY
[ 5.01 10] Jane Shaw (~1808-1872)	STG
[ 6.01* ] Margaret Muir (~1810->1866)
[ 7.01 12] Margaret McAndrew (~1796-1882)	MRY
[ 8.01 14] Elizabeth Anderson (~1815-1880)	MRY
Generation 5
[ 1.05* ] Thomas McLuckie (~1769-)	STG
[ 2.04* ] James Shand (~1768-1839)	MRY
[ 4.03* ] ?James Fraser (~1783-)
[ 5.02* ] John Shaw (~1773-<1872)
[ 7.02* ] William McAndrew (~1761-<1882)
[ 8.02* ] James Anderson (~1780-<1880)
[ 9.01* ] Janet Shearer (~1769-)	STG
[10.01* ] Martha Hunter (~1773-<1872)
[11.01 15] Marjory Barry (~1775-1866)	MRY
[12.01* ] Catherine Anderson (~1761-<1882)
[13.01 16] Isabella White (~1783-1866)
[14.01* ] Margaret Lamb (~1780-<1880)
Generation 6
[11.02* ] James Barry (~1740-)
[13.02* ] Alexander White (~1755-1834)	MRY
[15.01* ] Mary Garden (~1740-)
[16.01* ] Isabella McCarter (~1753-1839)