Pictures of Lancaster ED328 SR-S

Hello,

I know I am a little late to the thread but If Ianh is still active on here or anyone can point me in his direction, I would be very grateful.

John Armstrong-Currey was my Grandma’s brother  was one of the crew on ED-328. I have been searching for more photos but have fallen short at every corner. I have some photos from our side of the family but would love to see anymore photos of john or have anymore information about either the plane or her crew.

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Joe W

Excellent news. I see from the CWGC database that David Morgan Ellis is the son of David and Jane Ellis and that he was married to Iris May of Cwmgors[e], Carmarthenshire. Unfortunately my subscription to Ancestry has expired, but a search of these records might reveal any children and subsequent marriages if you have not already done this.

It is surprising how often wartime memories are blanked out by families, and are only revived by the curiosity of later generations. I followed the route suggested above and found a possible relative for the final (eighth) family I was seeking, but seemingly they were unconnected. It is, of course, sometimes the case that relatives do not want to be found, or that they have no wish to revive memories of events which they find painful to think about. I hope you have better luck than I have had so far with finding the last family of your crew.

Just to let you all know I have this week been contacted by the families of the 2 remaining Australian Crew. this means we are only looking for the family of Sgt David Ellis of Pontypridd S Wales. So 6 from 7 families are in contact.
It is amazing that taking to the families they still all hold the lost airmen in great respect many keeping their names alive by calling subsequent children after them. In our family my Brother, my Cousin and my son all have the name John somewhere in their name. It was also amazing that very little was known about what had happened and it was as if the parents of the crew just blocked it out, I know this was the case in my family, my Grandparents never spoke about it.

Ianh

ianh,

Glad to hear that you are making good progress – good luck with the remaining three.

I thought that you probably had a P4 report – as you say, much easier to get hold of in Australia than in the UK, although it does now seem that these should be available at Kew from next year. I may have a long wait as I understand that the earliest reports will be available first and mine is in 1944!

I received your message on my return home. Tomorrow morning would be a good time to talk.

Hi Bobkat

I will ring you, but I have been very busy at work and with the Press and talking to the family of Sgt Currey. The report I have I got from the RAAF is a P4 crash report.
On the AWM website you can find an immense amount of info the Australians are a lot more open than the MOD here in the UK and its free.
I can’t believe the interest it has created I hope we are able to find the family of Sgt Ellis and the other 2 from Australia.

Ianh

BlueMonkFish,

A slightly belated welcome to the Forum. I had been waiting for ianh to post a reply, but unless he has been in touch by private message, it seems we are both waiting for him to return from his travels?

As you may have gathered from the earlier posts on this thread, I have been conducting a similar exercise to ianh on Lancaster ED908. I have located 7 of the 8 families of the crew – there were 8 on board, instead of the usual 7, because the aircraft was the Oboe leader of the sortie. There is a link to the thread in post #8 above.

I do hope that you manage to make contact with all the other relatives.

ianh,

I don’t know what information you have and what research you or other families have already done, for example by looking at the 101 Sqn Operations Record Books at the National Archives. I am particularly interested to know more about the crash report you refer to. I am aware that the P4(Cas) reports not yet available at Kew can sometimes be found in the service record files of Australian and Canadian crew members. If this is what you have from one of the Australian crew files, I would be very interested to know what details it contains (only in general terms – not the specifics which are personal to your crew). As already mentioned, I have a few snippets from the ED908 report, but not the whole version, from the service file of ED908’s Canadian mid-upper gunner.

Looking at the press reports it seems likely that you have already carried out a substantial amount of background research, but I would be very happy to share my own experiences if this would be helpful – just let me know

Hi Ian,
I was wondering if you’ve heard from any other family members of the crew? The reason I ask is that Sgt John Currey was my grand uncle and since the family heard the report in the news on the 23rd we’ve been trying to contact those investigating the crash (pretty much every news article mentions the hunt for other family members was on but not who to contact hence my searching around the net for clues). He is also still survived by two of his sisters (my Grandma and grand aunt) who still have his medals and a photo taken of him in full flight gear.

Ian H, is your crash report a P4(Cas) report or something different?

Hi all

I have a copy of the crash report for ED328. We have found that a lot of the facts were incorrect including the crash coordinates and even the church cemetery where they were initially buried. If it hadn’t been for Dr Hans Richter the eye witness we would have probably given up looking as the original coordinates were quite a few miles away from the actual site. It is amazing after 70 years how many people are searching for lost relatives and crash sites. We were a little lucky as the site was in a heavily wooded area in the former East Germany, I have to say we are most grateful to Christian Wengel and his team from the LAO, they are all volunteers and do it for fun. Up to know they have found a Focke Wolfe 190 with the pilot still on board, several Russian fighters, a B17 and a Liberator. I know they have a few more they are looking for at the moment, but it takes time. If any of you are in the Berlin area I would recommend the Finowfurt Aviation Museum it is a hands on museum on an old Soviet Mig base.
Ian H

beachcomber,

We should keep in touch.

pm sent

beachcomber,

It seems that there are a few of us on similar quests. You may be aware that there are Casualty reports prepared by the Air Ministry Casualty Branch and that a report is likely to exist on each of our respective Lancasters. Whether these contain photographs, I do not know. They are shortly to be made available for public inspection at the National Archives, but the transfer is taking some time and the first may not be available until next year. I have the reference number for ED908’s report from the Canadian mid-upper gunner’s personnel file!!

We should keep in touch.

ianh, glad to hear from you – yes I did see the press coverage. Excellent news.

I have your private message, but am about to go out for the rest of the morning. I will reply separately on my return.

Hi Ian
I too have been researching a Lancaster, R5679 lost over Gronhoj 24/25th Sept 1942 I have managed to find some photos of the aircraft and went over to Denmark this year for a ceremony and the opening of a memorial room to the crew at the town of Gronhoj. I was amazed at the eyewitness accounts of the crash from which we were able to plot the flightpath. The aircraft glided in and burst into flames there was still Lancaster parts found close to the surface. My family were taken to the garden of a house where my cousin was discovered after he bailed out too low for his parachute to deploy.

Good luck with your endeavours, I was also trying to discover if there were any photographs of the crash site but have been unable to discover any so far.

Hi Bobkat
Sorry for not replying sooner, I have been over to Berlin, to the museum and the crash site. They have managed to identify most parts, I have some which I am struggling with and at some point I will get round to looking harder. The main part of the plane was removed a few weeks after the crash but I am told from the eye witness Dr Richter that it wasn’t very carefully done and they have found a lot of smaller parts including flying goggles, instrument dials, buckles, fuselage, miles of hydraulic pipe, a watch, a whistle, oxygen release handles, parts of the bomb aiming equipment, earpieces from flight helmets, cockpit lamps, and importantly for me some air gunners tools. I will drop you a private message as you have said you may be able to help. You may have seen in the national press an article has been written (big feature in The Express 23rd Nov 2013) as we are trying to track down the families of the other crew members. To date and thanks to press there are 4 families from the 7 crew in touch and I am passing on the information I have found on to them.
Ian H

ianh,

I am assuming the absence of any response to my earlier posts may be because you are away. I don’t know how much experience your people have at identifying wreckage. From the questions you ask, would I be correct in assuming that this is the first Lancaster they have dealt with?

As I have already mentioned, we seem to have a mutual interest in that we are each seeking to identify wreckage from a Lancaster from the same Avro batch. It is interesting that ‘your’ wreckage is scattered over four different locations. Are there parts of the fuselage or only shattered remnants to be found? Or is it too early to say?

It may help if I pass on my experience. The parts of ED908 found do not include the fuselage – the larger remnants were removed from the crash site at around the end of the war. We are faced with a multitude of distorted metal parts of varying shapes and sizes. Some are quite simply unrecognisable, or too small to be of any significance. We have found over 100 pieces of potentially distinguishable items with distinctive features, of which we have identified about seventy.

What I have found most helpful is the photos on the internet of Lancasters which are being/have been restored as these frequently show the inner fabric of the aircraft. The parts lists really only come into play when something is found with a number on it – either an Avro manufacturing mark or an Air Ministry reference number. Without any accompanying illustrations, the lists are not a great deal of help on their own – you will see several examples of this detective work on the ED908 thread. The link is in my earlier post.

Please do get in touch when you are able as I am sure we will have much to share. If you would prefer, send me a private message.

ianh,

It has occurred to me since my message yesterday that you might also find it useful to have a copy of AP 2062A & C, the Official Air Publication for the Lancaster Mk.I and III. This does not list all the parts but provides many diagrams. I have found it an invaluable tool in my own researches.

This is found in a publication entitled “The Lancaster Manual” in the RAF Museum series which is currently available on Amazon and probably elsewhere. The bottom price quoted is a little more than I paid for mine.

ED328 comes from the same Avro batch as ED908 so we are both likely to be looking at similar items.

ianh,

The parts “bible” is AP1086 – Priced Vocabulary of RAF Equipment – but wartime editions appear to be almost non-existent. There are some extracts available, but my guess is that these will not be of much help. Have a look at the “Wreckage of Lancaster ED908 (60-Z)” thread. You may find something of interest there.

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?120747-Wreckage-of-Lancaster-ED908-(60-Z)

Hi I have been told today that the LAO have found lots of parts from ED328 SR-S. They have asked if there is a parts catalogue for the Lancaster as they would like to identify the parts found. they have also asked if there is a parts list for the Halifax for the same reason.
Ianh

Since I posted the last message Christian from the LAO has email some images and a diary report about the crash from a Germany Guard. They have also started finding items such as helmet headphones and pieces of the plane. They plane to have a small display at the Museum.

Ianh

Hi Ian, and welcome to the forum.

Up until a few years ago I maintained a reasonably comprehensive database of Lancaster photos in published sources. I say “reasonably comprehensive” because I am a sucker for all things Bomber Command and the Lancaster in particular and so just about any new book offering good facts and/or a good selection of photos would inevitably end up on my bookshelf.

Interesting to hear that you have kept such a database. I occasionally stumble across photos in unusual places and have often wondered if anyone would be interested in the information in the photo. Problem is there does not seem to be a central “source” for reporting such information, unlike the excellent LEMB Stammkennzeichen Database for Luftwaffe aircraft.
I’m not particularly interested in Lancasters by the way, this more of a general point.
Regards,
Andy