Amongst my old aviation ‘stuff’, I have found a cutting of a BOAC Mosquito “about to take off for a night journey” – not that unusual perhaps but, on the reverse, is part of an article that is quite interesting.
The title of the article (probably just part of an article) is “Captain Parker & Mr. Edwards in Broadcast” and it concerns a radio programme entitled “Britain’s Merchant Air Service“. This was broadcast on the BBC Forces as part of a series called “Radio Reconnaissance“. The two spoke to Macdonald Hastings (a name from the past and the father of Max Hastings, I believe) and it was broadcast on 16th August. The piece adds that this broadcast was recorded and rebroadcast on 19th August.
The following is the little I have found out about this.
This series appears to have re-started (?) on 4 July 1941 and is described as follows: “Radio Reconnaissance in its new form will bring each Thursday a varied programme containing from time to time despatches from the front, snapshots of people in the news, flashes from regimental and naval history, and other items of interest to the Armed Forces“.
The name of Macdonald Hastings comes up in connection with other “Radio Reconnaissance” programmes.
If the whole series was first broadcast on a Thursday, then “16th August” would have been 1945, with “19th August” being a Sunday. However, while there were other programmes in this series broadcast on a Thursday, at least one seems to have been on a Monday. Perhaps the part-article was from 1946 and not 1945. Perhaps this programme was broadcast in connection with HMSO publishing “Merchant Airmen” which came out in 1946.
The rest of the part-article says that, “It was a story told by Captain Parker and Mr Edwards of the Corporation’s work in wartime“. It goes on to mention the sort of people and freight carried by BOAC and the extent of the organisation. The cutting ends as “Mr Edwards” is going on to talk about the Return Ferry Service.
The fact that the programme was recorded (which I suggest means that, back then, it was made into a disc that could be played) raises the possibility (remote perhaps) that the programme still survives in an archive somewhere or other. On a disc rather than magnetic tape, it could not be recorded over, so it was either kept or discarded.
Can anyone here shed any light on this broadcast? Or, indeed, on this article?
By: ianwoodward9 - 7th April 2017 at 16:15
I hope to be able to post an image of the cutting to which I referred at the start of this thread:
By: ianwoodward9 - 4th April 2017 at 00:28
Easter Balloch Hill is almost due west of Loch Lee and it is where the Water of Lee, that later flows into that loch, rises. Its height is given as 2731′ in my old GB road atlas. It is just under 40 miles NNW of Leuchars. Since the crash took place well over an hour after take-off, some have speculated that the crew were trying to find their way back to base. One report briefly says that the aircraft was “burned out in crash at 2550′ …. while approaching Leuchars“. This may be the source of the information that it was returning from Sweden.
It had previously made four return flights to Stockholm, the first being on 23 July 1943. This, its fifth outward journey, was flight number 11B 452. The aircraft accident reports are AVIA 2/2346 (in the National Archives at Kew) and AW/1/2035 (in the British Airways Heritage Collection).
I have drawn this information from A.J.Jackson’s “British Civil Aircraft 1919-59” book, from the 1994/1996 book “Blockade Runners” and from Nils Mathisrud’s recently published book “The Stockholm Run“.
The photograph in the cutting that prompted this thread is IWM reference number CH 10664.
I would still be interested to learn more about the BBC radio broadcast concerning BOAC’s wartime services. Does anyone know anything about this programme?
By: Arabella-Cox - 3rd April 2017 at 23:06
Thanks for the finer detail, Ian.
It’s a sobering set of images seeing first the complete and live aircraft then its rusting wreckage many years later.
Anon.
By: ianwoodward9 - 3rd April 2017 at 22:04
You are correct about the identity of the Mosquito. There are two shots of this aircraft taking off that night.
One shows G-AGGF to the right of center, photographed from the rear showing its port side at an oblique angle (the runway lights to the left of the aircraft). This appears in the HMSO booklet “Merchant Airman” across pages 194 and 195.
The second photograph (the one in this cutting) was taken from the other side, also from the rear but showing the starboard side of the aircraft but from a less oblique angle, so more of the fuselage is visible. The runway lights are on the right of the photograph and less obvious.
They were Air Ministry photographs, now with the Imperial war Museum, I believe.
G-AGGF was lost on the outward journey. It took off from Leuchars at 20.16 on 17 August 1943, crewed by Captain Louis Alfred Wilkins (known as Bill) and Flt Sgt. Harold Beamont, seconded from the RAF as the Radio Officer. It was carrying 1338 lbs of mail. The R/O made several calls requesting a true bearing from a station and a magnetic heading. Replies were acknowledged by the R/O, the last of these being at 21.34. It crashed at a shallow angle, scattering the wreckage over a wide area of the moor at Easter Balloch Hill, near Inverness Lodge at Glen Lee in Angus. It was 40 degrees off course. The wreckage was not located until 7 September 1943. The Court of Inquiry speculated that the aircraft had suffered a major instrument or compass failure. There are contemporary photographs of the crash site at the British Airways Heritage Centre and in the National Archives.
In 1984, an ATC unit recovered the starboard elevator, which is displayed at its HQ in Aberdeen. In the 1990s, Yorkshire Air Museum recovered some further parts.
There is a well-known IWM photograph (available on-line, I believe) of a pilot in a white flying suit about to climb into a BOAC Mosquito at Leuchars. That is Bill Wilkins and the person on the right of the photograph is Harold Beaumont.
By: Arabella-Cox - 3rd April 2017 at 21:16
I suspect the picture you refer to is of Mosquito G-AGGF, Ian?
It was setting off for Sweden on a “Ball Bearing Run”, also known for taking and returning secret agents.
That particular aircraft’s remains still lie on the north end of Glen Esk in Scotland, it being lost on a return journey one dark night with the loss of the crew.
Anon.
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April 3, 2017 at 7:51 pm