A-26 Invader, Bovingdon – One for Steve Bond.

Mark, 1959 it is. My records show it was there for some days in July of that year, so I guess that must be when you caught it on celluloid. As far as I am aware, no-one ever identified the unit it belonged to; all the Sculthorpe based machines were long gone by then.

Many thanks Steve.

Methinks black paint and no unit details sounds like a ‘spook’ mission of some kind.

Am I correct in thinking that this could perhaps have been the last operational USAAF A-26 in the UK?

The date is very welcome. I am trying to sort and scan a large assortment of 127 format negative strips for the period 1957 to 1961. They were originally in fours but many have been chopped to singles. No film frame numbers of course. I was never a collector of serials or registrations so no log book for me.

Mark

Mark, 1959 it is. My records show it was there for some days in July of that year, so I guess that must be when you caught it on celluloid. As far as I am aware, no-one ever identified the unit it belonged to; all the Sculthorpe based machines were long gone by then.

Propstrike,

The shot was taken over the fence.

I can’t be absolutely sure of the location as it was the policy of cycling teenage boys on trips like this to circumnavigate the whole airfield by absolutely all routes possible. My feeling is that it was out on the Chesham road from the main gate and a bit further round. This would make it the west side as Steve has suggested.

Mark

Mark; so the gauntlet has been thrown down eh? I will check my records at home tonight and see if I can date it for you.

Propstrike. I may be wrong, but it looks to me as though the shot was taken on the remote dispersal on the west side of the airfield. Yes indeed, Bovingdon was “spotter’s heaven” in those days – and cycling distance from home for me too. I’ll have to dig out some of my photos some time, but you were always guaranteed something exciting would turn up. I remember arriving there one day to the familiar growl of a Shackleton taking off, which turned out to be South African. Marvellous!

Thanks for this, Mark.

Could you cast your mind back a mere 45 years, to recall where on the field the pic was taken- It looks as if you may have been within the peri-track. I have a great affection for Bovingdon, and by all accounts it was a ‘spotter’s heaven’ in the ’60s.