If anyone can answer this I will be impressed. At the beginning of 1984 it was reported on a news TV programme “Sixty Minutes”, this programme was a successor to Nationwide (who remembers that!), but the show only lasted about a year, that during an exceptionally low tide off the coast of Margate, Kent, UK, the complete wrecks of a Lancaster, Halifax, Stirling and B17 were revealed. There was film taken from the air which clearly showed the aircraft resting on the sand and out of the water.
The question is, I have never heard anymore about this incident, so how do I find out more? Does anyone know of the incident and are they still there?
(grateful if we could stick with this incident and not discuss every wreck around the UK!!)
By: David_Kavangh - 16th July 2003 at 21:14
I never cease to be amazed at the depth of knowledge on the Forum. I never believed anyone would have heard about this.
I haven’t been to Manston since the Museum opened; I’ll have to pay a visit and try and see the photo. I guess after 60 years there is going to be little left of these aircraft.
Paul,
If you find this book in the Wigan library I’d be grateful if you could let me know its title – and any further details contained in it.
Thanks to all who replied (I was beginning to think I’d dreamt the whole thing up!)
By: Ross_McNeill - 12th July 2003 at 14:25
Hi mmitch,
The wreck off Manston has been described both a Lancaster and a B17.
It is in fact B-17G-10-BO, #42-31243 of 427BS/303BG.
A few years ago a licence was issued for it’s recovery but just prior to the licence holders arriving on site one of the engines was removed.
Police later recovered the engine.
The sands round that part of the coast contain the remains of quite a few aircraft wrecks both Allied and Axis. Most have been badly damaged or obliterated by drag net fishing.
Regards
Ross
By: mmitch - 12th July 2003 at 11:34
In the RAF Manston History Museum there is a display of photos taken when the SAR helicopter was based there. One showed the winchman wading through the wreckage at a low tide. It was just ‘bare bones’. Years ago I was told that a Stirling and a Fortress could be seen on a direct approach to Manston’s runway which was used as a emergency landing base.
mmitch.
By: Paul Cushion - 12th July 2003 at 11:07
Yes, I know of the incident. Not much use, but it is also mentioned in a book (out of print now) that I once got from the library in Wigan.
I can’t remeber the name of the book , but I will be going back up in a few weeks so I will try to get it out. In the book it adds that these are available to see at ‘exceptionally low tides’.
It’s amzing that no one has tried to recover them really is’nt it?
Then again, they could be in the state of the ‘Lancasters buried in the quarry’, – once aircraft that just the outlines now exist of and a few corroded bits of metal….. at least twenty years on…….
If these were seen in the sea in 1984, that means they could have ditched anythimg between 39-45 years before. Add onother twenty years in the sea and sadly they may all be corroded to bits by now……..
Paul.
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July 12, 2003 at 10:40 am