Help/info/sharing

Hello Guys , I have been working on the ND627 crash. I have information on sgt W Marshall and a picture of WO2 B E Vipond. Vipond absolutely looks like one of the crew members shown on this site . Therefore I confirm that this arcraft was ND627. It came down in the rue des aciers in the Barriere Saint Marc neigbourhood in Fleury les Aubrais, north of Orleans. Those who died are burried in Orleans. I have located the crash site. There was a crater there until the seventies when it was filled up and a hospital was built there for retired people.

Is that some damage on the fuselage of the plane in the code letter beside the serial number? Looks like a small hole.

Ross, the damage seems to look like a foot step or something like that, it’s not damage and I have never noticed this before.

Back to the Lancaster photo for a moment.

Many Lancs had a second static vent installed in about this position, particularly when fitted with the Mk. XIV bombsight. It usually shows up on photos as a bright spot, approx. 6″ x 2.5″.

I’m tempted to say that the small object is the flag on the end of a plug which would have been fitted on the ground to prevent dirt getting in (the “remove before flight” type).

However, some of the photoshopped images have me doubting this. They appear to show something protruding from the fuselage, with a shield over it.

I can’t see anything like it in other Lanc photos and it’s got me intrigued.

I’m taking a quick break from renewing the Waxoyl treatment on the underside of my ancient camper van…anyone who’s ever done this job will understand why I suddenly have an irresistable desire to look at Lanc photos!

The Spitfire Photograph

Pimpernel,

That is just fine.

Not a personal code I now see – I was reading the roundel as a digit at the small scale.

This is MV270 OI-D of 2 Sqd. operating out of Celle or Wunstorf.

Many thanks for posting.

Mark

These two shots were taken on Gibraltar, the dates I cannot find anywhere.
I believe them to be either very late 40’s early 50’s.

The light plane is belived to be Sheila Scott’s plane on a morale boosting mission. Thats what I was told anyway.

BP. 🙂

These are the last three of Sylt that I know of.

BP. 🙂

Any chance of a larger image of the ‘squidgy’ Spitfire XIV shot and is it sporting a personal code?

Mark

Mark.
This is the best I can do. I cannot even see the personal code with an jewellers eyepiece. The photo is only 3″ X 2″ and the Spit takes up a third of the picture.
I am a basic PC user and trying to blow up a picture but keeping the size down, I have not quite mastered.

Thanks.

BP.

ND627

Based on the Wickerby connection

http://www.ns56.dial.pipex.com/626july.htm

That is much better! I’d concur with Ross – ND621 or ND627.
ND621 was AS-U of 166Sqn, and unfortunately lost with all crew 15/7/44. Home base at that time was Kirmington.
But then 12Sqn – with ND627 as PH-U – was based at Wickenby…
Interesting that both these aircraft were individually coded ‘U’!

Flood.™

I’d say that serial is ND621 or ND627.

These are the sort of photos I like to see – great stuff.

I guess how ever old you are, it it always the previous generation’s photos that have the greatest appeal.

Any chance of a larger image of the ‘squidgy’ Spitfire XIV shot and is it sporting a personal code?

Mark

These are the best I can find at the moment.

BP. 😀

Thanks for the info chaps, very helpful. But the best that I can do is this shot below.

Ross, the damage seems to look like a foot step or something like that, it’s not damage and I have never noticed this before.

JDK. Yes he did survive the war. He only spoke about this in the last ten – fifteen years and was not sure of the details when asked at the time. He spoke of many interesting things but lacked answers to my specific questions. He did have a log book which I have only just found, but this was for pilot training in Canada.
(I cannot double check on the dates as my sister has his log book at the moment, but I am sure that there were no logs for this trip)

The other photos are taken on the Isle of Sylt in early 1947 and are a thank you and for you all to enjoy.

BP. 🙂

Maybe, as I said earlier, we could ask Pimpernel for a high res scan of just the serial? No point in doing things the hard (and possibly wrong) way…

Nope….

Sorry, but I’m sticking with ND627. When you take the reasonably reliable characters into account (?D?27), and then compare them with Lancaster serial ranges, and individual aircraft histories, there really aren’t any other viable options.

Harry Holmes lists ND627 as with 12 Sqn. in Feb. ’44, so there’s another corroborating piece of info.

And Peter had already come to this conclusion, too, which I hadn’t spotted when I sent my first reply!

A few observations:
If the date given is correct then it can’t be ND327, which was lost in a collision on 24/12/43 with 100Sqn – a shame since running it through Photoshop made this a possibility.
I don’t see it as being ND627 – a close-up view makes the first number either a 3 or an 8. It is not be a little early for this one to be there at the time, though – ND324-NE181 (with black-out gaps, of course) were a batch of 600 delivered between 12/43 and 5/44 and several Lancs from within 15-20 numbers either side of ND627 were lost in early March 1944, making a February date possible (if only the numbers appeared to fit!).
There was no ND827.
NG327 was lost on 22/2/45 with 49Sqn – but that batch of 400 Lancs was apparently delivered between 7/44 and 2/45.

Trying to figure out the serial is made a bit more difficult since the pixels of the upper part of the first letter are ‘damaged’ (for want of a better word), making it look like an ‘R’. The second letter clearly looks like a ‘D’, whilst the first number could be either a ‘3’ or ‘8’; it certainly doesn’t look to me like a ‘6’. The second and third numbers are, almost without a doubt, ‘2’ and ‘7’. Unfortunately RD327 and RD827 were allotted to Beaufighters, not Lancasters…
At a push the first letter might be a ‘P’ – PD327 was issued to 630Sqn; unfortunately it was part of a batch of 200 Lancs delivered between 6 and 12/44…

What would be great, I will echo again, is a high quality scan of that area around the serial.

Flood.™

Is that some damage on the fuselage of the plane in the code letter beside the serial number? Looks like a small hole.

Note that 626 squadron was also at Wickenby from November 1943 also with Lancasters.
mmitch.

Might it be ND627, which was “PH-U” of 12 Sqn.?

12 Sqn. was at Wickenby in February 1944 and the code letter after the roundel might well be “U”.

If it is ND627, it went missing on a raid to Orleans, the night of 4th/5th July, 1944….almost exactly sixty years ago to the day!

(My only caveat is that ND627 would have been almost new and may not have reached 12 Sqn. by February.)

Perhaps someone with access to the 12 Sqn. ORB may be able to help. What about the Wickenby Register?

Looking through some websites, if it starts with a K then it must be KB, but it also looks like ND.

Looking at it in Paint Shop it looks to me like KD82?, possibly 827 or 829. Can’t figure out how to post a pic.