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Reply To: 355 Sqn Liberator crew grave exhumation

Home Forums Historic Aviation 355 Sqn Liberator crew grave exhumation Reply To: 355 Sqn Liberator crew grave exhumation

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Matt Poole
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Now that the image-posting gremlin has been solved (thank you kindly), I can post a photo taken on 17 May 1945, during the raid when Liberator KH250 was shot down by AA fire. Its bombs were dropped on the same target, Chatham Island, seen here, although I don’t believe these are KH250’s exploding bombs. This photo is from 356 Sqn pilot Wally Frazer’s book, “A Trepid Aviator”.

A slightly different frame from the same bombing sequence is in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, item C5352 — seen here with the greasepencil markings.

This same image is seen in a 16 June 1945 issue of THE SPHERE magazine.

For a then-vs-now comparison of Chatham Island, I’ve posted a two-in-one image (adjoining images). On the left is a cropped 6 Nov 1944 photo recon image I found at the US National Archives. Note the lumber floating in the water near the sawmill. Also note that some of the buildings have damaged roofs — you can see the ribs of the roofing framework. This is most likely evidence of damage from previous Allied air attacks. On the right is a satellite photo from 22 March 2017 (Google Earth seems to show a different date, by one day, on UK computers). I can tell that logs are still floated in the water. This is very obvious in other satellite imagery available via Google Earth.