Highball recovery today.

P & P, don’t seem to remember you being there at the time….. If I remember correctly a blue/green colour. And…. if Alan Thomas was alive today he would confirm our attempts to keep the mozzies at bay….There were lots of remains there in those days but all the wood had collapsed. Most had their outer wings cut off to enable the move along roads to their respective destinations but there were lots of cowlings, engines, u/c, engine mounts, props etc there including the four bladed variants. There would be enough for the Kiwis to build an entire squadron of the things.

Strontium carbonate for red, copper chloride for blue, barium chloride for green, calcium chloride for orange & sodium nitrate for yellow. Mix copper & strontium for purple. White/silver is aluminum, magnesium or titanium… I also messed about with fireworks, BIG ones. Nothing quite like replying to some muppet throwing bangers around with a 10in mortar 🙂

I wonder if they have test burnt that teak yet? or indeed found any. 😀

P&P – other than pretty fireworks the flame colour it is also the basis of an old chemical technique – flame photometry.

P.S. for many years telegraph poles also had a pressurised arsenic treatment to make them weather proof – so don’t worry about the Mossie as there are a lot more telegraph poles around.

“as we slept on the back of the truck we burned some of the aircraft wood to keep the more annoying variety of “Moz” away. Interesting colour of the flame with whatever chemical the wood had been impregnated.”

This Australian story would be more believable if you included the bit where ” Barry, fully lubricated, decided to try and fire walk over the burning Mosquito remains, fell on his **** and got his famous scar of Mosquito undercarriage torque arm burnt into his buttock”.

But your cruel, throwaway comment has me thinking : was this a blue flame ? When I think back to my pre 9-11 firework making days, copper salts where mixed in for blue-green flame. Arsenic salts make a blue flame. So was the timber sprayed or infused with CCA, chromated copper arsenate ? This, of course, would stop insect damage to the timber, like borers or termites. Was this part of the preparation of Mosquito airframes for the tropics? Of course arsenic solutions were used as sheep and cattle dip insecticides, so did some farmer try and preserve the kid’s playground from termites by spraying it with sheep dip? In any case the crumbling, dusty bits of Mosquito fuselage that you might see these days might be carrying a wonderful new way to die, by inhaling arsenic dust ! I must get some bits tested and see what comes back….

“That has to be the worst byline I’ve ever seen, ever” – Bruce, the byline is the credit of who wrote the piece :eagerness:

Ando: mixed feelings about you burning Mosquito remains. I’m glad it helped you survive, but at the same time…! Watching the flames does sound interesting though.

I wonder if the owner of DZ542 will get their hands on one of these? Would be cool to see it displayed alongside the aircraft.

I’ll drink to that.

That’s a very Jag force attitude, Tony

Divers have been working for about seven years to devise a salvage plan since first surveying the loch. They have been helped by the Royal Navy, which is providing a ship and a crane for the operation.

OK, we will lower a net over the side, roll the mine into it and lift it back onto the boat… Right, that leaves six years three hundred and sixty four days left, lets go to the pub.

..

Caption to one of the photos: “The bomb was retrieved in ‘perfect condition’, according to the divers, despite sitting on the bottom of the loch for the last 74 years.”

Perfect condition!!

Glad to see that someone has recovered some of the Highballs. No.618 ended its days at Narromine in New South Wales. They had some very interesting machines; some fitted with four bladed props. I was involved in the recovery of one which is now part of the Camden Museum of Aviation. The old timers in Narromine still remembered that for months the Highball “mines-bombs” were being detonated. There were many aircraft scattered around the farms in those days. Our one was located next to a dam on the property and as we slept on the back of the truck we burned some of the aircraft wood to keep the more annoying variety of “Moz” away. Interesting colour of the flame with whatever chemical the wood had been impregnated.

“Specialist lifting equipment” = a net.

No wonder the BBC doesn’t have a comments section in their articles,,

I don’t know…. this by its very nature is incorrect too

More than 200 of the spherical bombs were tested at Loch Striven during World War Two but were never used.

every one of them was used.. :rolleyes:

Iain Murray, a trustee of the Barnes Wallis Foundation, told the BBC: “The main purpose of developing Highball was to attack the battleship Tirpitz which was moored in the Norwegian fjords.

“Unfortunately it was located in an awkward position so it was difficult to attack using Highball and it was ultimately attacked using midget submarines.

It would have been nice to mention that it was “Ultimately” sunk by the RAF and a few tallboys.

Good old Beeb

..

That has to be the worst byline I’ve ever seen, ever. ‘Bombs as used in the Dambusters Movie’. Ugh…

but they are mines not bombs but hey only a small detail.
200! we can all have one

mind you ‘ the bouncing mine’ does not quite sound right

“I say, what’s that skipping across the lake heading towards us…… Christ it’s a bomb!!!”

“I say old chap, it’s actually a mine don’t you know…”

“Run”

Glad they have recovered them, remarkable condition too 🙂

And they’re up!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4711784/Divers-bouncing-bombs-bottom-Scottish-loch.html

Nice to see a detail of HMS Malaya being used as the target in that article, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of the ship during the tests…

but they are mines not bombs but hey only a small detail.
200! we can all have one

mind you ‘ the bouncing mine’ does not quite sound right