C-82 crash in England 1954

I used to go to Burtonwood regularly in the mid fifties and I don’t remember any C-82s.

Regards

TDY (from memory) is less than 90 days. But that applies to units, not aircraft singly.

I didn’t realise there was a book dedicated to reading IARCs, but it does make sense. My list came from a handwritten set of notes many years ago from Dave McLaren.

It’s good to see fellow IARC readers on here though – I was beginning to despair of the “Where on Wikipedia can I find…?” type of question, often rendering a, “I found this on Baugher’s list” type of reply. I had imagined a world where the term ‘historian’ meant one who was able to Google adeptly.

Mind you, I know of a number of books which have reached publication by using just this process.

Hello,

Looks like we have some fellow IARC readers here!

I’ve been learning to read these cards for my book on the C-82 and have been using Robert A. Mann’s excellent book on the subject.
I’ve tried to email Mr. Mann on many occassions but he doesn’t reply?

Not to change the subject on this thread to much but the C-82 had many RT and RM codes to depots and AFBs in their record cards.

I have acquired all of them except for the 16 or so that were not scanned to microfilm due to being missing – all were w/o in Europe during
assignment to the 60th TCG.

Archie Defantie at Maxwell informed me that a “deployment” is a unit assignment that lasts less than a year away from its parent unit?
Is this correct as I’ve decoded 180 cards with this rule. Mann’s book doesn’t mention it.

Thanks.

Bushy Hall (allocated for US use on 24 Nov’52 with US units present 15 Jun’53 onwards.)

6th Chemical Smoke Generator Battalion
Hq 32nd AAA Brigade (with L-17’s)
7726th Augmentation Det, Hq Battery, 32nd AAA Brigade
Det. of 3rd Air Postal Sqdn
32nd Army Band
34th AAA Operating Det.
7726th Army Unit 1
7726th Army Unit 2
Bushy Hall School for US Children
Det.of 7532 Material Sqdn
Det.of 7480 Supply Group
Det.of 7135 School Group
Central High School for US Children
Det.of US Dependent School European Area
Det.of 7500 Air Base Group
European Exchange System

– info from the 3rd Air Force Historical Brief

Possible, but I’d assume a Depot Maint code (or similar) if it was transferred to a non-resident unit (Working Party etc), rather than another ‘RT’.

But yes – Air Britain often comes up trumps in these situations.

Just to clarify:

60th TCW, Rhine Main
Assg AMC 04Mar53
Lost 60th TCW/Gain AMC Kelly 05May53
En Route 05May53
Transient Maint 1631st ABSqn Prestwick 08May53
Transient Maint 7559th MGp B’Wood 06Jan54
‘A’ auth salvage as result of flying accident (but most likely date for accident was 08May53), 20Jul54
AFE reinstated/AMC cancelled 29Sep54

No assignment other than 60th TCW and AMC Kelly (but never arrived) shown. Transient maints ‘RT’ are not assignments – otherwise we’d have some very strange fighter assignments in the ’50s, when brief RT’s are shown many times all over the place, often at civilian airfields!

Filling in the rest of it for completeness

Fairchild, Hagerstown Available and Accepted July 29 1947

Delivered to 62ndTCMGP Mc Chord Oct 27 1947
Gained 61st MSUGP Rhein Main Oct 21 1949
Gained 60thTCMGP Weisbaden Dec 24 1949
Moved with the 60th to Rhein Main July 7 1950
60thTCMGP redesignated 60thTCMWG June 2 1951

Agree that the most likely date for the accident was 8 May’53 but wonder if it ever left Prestwick? Could be that responsibility for the aircraft changed from the 1631st to the 7559th on Jan 1 ’54 and they left it there pending a decision on its future.
Its in cases such as this that humble spotters reports can turn out to be invaluable when trying to confirm official data on the location of aircraft because sometimes it can be misleading.

Thanks…there’s plainly a long-running and irritating confusion between Bushy Park and Bushey Hall (both for the USAF back then and historians now?)….I know nothing about Bushey Hall but I know that the demolition of the Bowling Alley and Clinic facilities at Bushy Park (1960s?) caused some local complaints about the waste

Bushy Park. HQ only and not a flying field for ARS aircraft except possibly H-19s.

ARS = Air Rescue Service/Squadron. 9th ARS flights became squadrons circa 1953 and for example, the 9th ARS flight at Manston became 66th ARS. 9th ARS was concurrently upgraded to Group status.

Can somebody clarify whether the base location being referred to is Bushy Park ( about 5 miles South of Heathrow, never more than a liaison strip but had a hospital and bowling alley!)) or Bushey Hall (about 12 miles north of Heathrow, don’t know if it had an airstrip, but Bovingdon (with runways) a few miles NW was used by USAF)…also what does the acronym ARS mean in this case?

Just to clarify:

60th TCW, Rhine Main
Assg AMC 04Mar53
Lost 60th TCW/Gain AMC Kelly 05May53
En Route 05May53
Transient Maint 1631st ABSqn Prestwick 08May53
Transient Maint 7559th MGp B’Wood 06Jan54
‘A’ auth salvage as result of flying accident (but most likely date for accident was 08May53), 20Jul54
AFE reinstated/AMC cancelled 29Sep54

No assignment other than 60th TCW and AMC Kelly (but never arrived) shown. Transient maints ‘RT’ are not assignments – otherwise we’d have some very strange fighter assignments in the ’50s, when brief RT’s are shown many times all over the place, often at civilian airfields!

I’d surmise an incident at Prestwick (engine fire/heavy landing etc) and subsequent recovery to B’Wood for assessment/repair.

Since both locations show ‘RT’ codes, it’s not correct to state either base as an assignment.

I doubt that the incident is recorded, but still worth looking for a mishap report for 8th May 1953. This looks to be the date it arrived at Prestwick.

Attached are the cards for 45-57768. Yes it was in transit to the US for retirement to Kelly AFB. I do think it was with the7559th
when the accident happened. There are about 16 C-82 accidents that occurred in the England and Europe that the US never
recorded details on and some of the IARCs are even missing! Thanks for the details on the ARS assignments, yes these are
recorded by me and were assigned as stated above.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]235780[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]235782[/ATTACH]

It does sound like the aircraft was being returned to the US from the 60th TCW: Burtonwood or Prestwick would be typical transient stops en route, so I think your guess that it was an accident at Prestwick looks sound.

Any chance you could post the last couple of cards?

OK – looks like a flying accident ‘A’ at B’Wood (RT/transient) on 20th July 54. Thus, it looks like (possibly) an accident on transfer from another unit, and it again looks like it wasn’t a 7559th aircraft, merely taken on charge for disposal.

What does the previous line say? Most likely it will show another unit with an ‘LB’ (or similar) loss code.

First reference to this being on 7559’s charge was Jan 6 ’54 – the same date it was recorded as RT (Transient Maintenance) with the 1631ABS at Prestwick. Its possible it suffered a mishap at Prestwick which rendered it beyond economical repair and it took until July’54 for them to authorise salvage. Alternatively, it may have been repaired and operated from Burtonwood with the accident happening later – the records are not clear about this!

What is clear is that prior to this it served with the 60th TCMW at Rhein Main in ’53 but will need to look at this again to determine when it left the unit.

OK – looks like a flying accident ‘A’ at B’Wood (RT/transient) on 20th July 54. Thus, it looks like (possibly) an accident on transfer from another unit, and it again looks like it wasn’t a 7559th aircraft, merely taken on charge for disposal.

What does the previous line say? Most likely it will show another unit with an ‘LB’ (or similar) loss code.

Graham,

Can you transcribe the line which shows the ‘A’ or ‘J’ loss? It should say ‘auth recl’ or similar.

A Burtonwood 7559 MAIGP`auth salvage`7 20 54
C-82RT

9th ARS HQ at Bushey Park: B Flight had C-82s.

[QUOTE=J Boyle;
There were 2 Packet units in the UK,,, the 9th ARS at Bushy Park in 51-52 and the 66th ARS at Manston in 52-53.[/QUOTE]

AFAIK Bushy Park was only used by STOL liaison types…wasn’t an airfield

Graham,

Can you transcribe the line which shows the ‘A’ or ‘J’ loss? It should say ‘auth recl’ or similar.

Adding/confirming just a little to this.
I’ve looked at 768’s record cards and they suggest it was indeed a Burtonwood `hack` assigned to the 7559th MAIGP. It was involved in a flying accident somewhere which, according to USAF status codes, required transient maintenance but ultimately the aircraft was authorised for salvage July 20th ’54.
Be very interested to know where this mishap occurred.

cheers,
Graham