My uncle was in that crash

Thanks to a very good friend, the panel provenance was finally identified. The panel is coming from Halifax III serial MZ789 of 10th Sqdn code ZA-H which crash landed at Guines (9km south of Calais) at around 7 AM in the morning of Novemver 29, 1944. None of the crew members (including 2 australians) were injured. The plane was coming back with an engine u/s from a mission to Essen, Germany.

Would by any chance someone have a photo of this plane ?

Cees, if you read this post, YES i do need your help/assistance/knowledge to try to complete the panel. As an example i bought in Shoreham a suction gage (which i understand is standard and unique model to all planes) but it doesn’t fit into the panel !

Have a nice day,

Laurent

Hi, my uncle (Lesley Shotter -tail or mid upper gunner, was in that crash landing. The French resitence got him back to England.

As I understand it:
As a consequence of damage the plane was losing altitude. The pilot said ‘we can either bail out now or keep going and hope to crash land in allied occupied terriotory’, the entire crew opted to stay on board. The crash landing was in no-mans land.

After thie crash landing I know that Lesley returned to flying because he and the rest of the crew were grounded for not taking their leave (some scam about accruing leave for another time) and then the war ended before their enforced leave did. He served on Wellington and Halifax bombers and completed two and a half tours (60 missions). His record shows him to be a mid upper gunner but according to his own account he was a tail gunner. I have some 16mm film somewhere (that I have never been able to see) of an aircraft gunner practising against friendly fighters (gleaned from looking at individual frames). Lesley is no longer with us but his son John and daughter Lesley both are.