Hello Spendlove,
Thanks very much for taking the trouble to look these up. I have to admit I couldn't find the records myself when I looked (was obviously typing in the wrong thing), but it does sound like the right man, given the initials match. Also, a birthday in the last quarter of the year would match an age of 30 at the time of the accident--Doug Adams would have died just short of his 31st birthday.
I am particularly interested in Doug Adams, because we have my uncle's log book, and it shows that they met while training. My uncle was the plane's navigator and Doug was its pilot. Pilots, navigators and bomb aimers all trained together. As you read through the log book you see that Doug Adams's name pops up more and more regularly throughout the training period. It seems to me that they must have hit it off somehow. During the war, the RAF let men form their own crews. I would say that Doug and my Uncle John probably formed the nucleus of a crew during their training and then hooked up with the others when they "crewed up" in the last stages of training.
What I don't understand is what the connection with Derby is when all his other connections were in the south. I am wondering if perhaps his wife came from Derby originally, in which case surviving family would quite likely be in Derby. It would also be useful to know if they had a child--quite possible, I would think, as they were married nearly two years.
But anyway, some clues are emerging, so thank you very much again for your efforts on my behalf. This is a difficult name to research, because of the author by the same name. I might now try and advertise for him on the Middlesex board, given the Brentford connection.
By the way, since you saw the record and I did not: is there no record of the father? Was his mother merely the person who made the registration, or does this imply he may have been illegitimate?
