Mustang dug up in Frinton, Essex

Rates for accessing the Collections content can be found here –
http://collections.iwm.org.uk/server/show/nav.23121

As I have said, individuals have accessed clips which have interested them. Film has been transferred to DVD (not sure if there was a small charge for doing so) and I suppose if a film company is searching for particular film (for a programme on a specific pilot or squadron perhaps) then they only have to ask the Film Archive to find this. The cost is not my area so can’t help with that.

This is very much a work in progress and I’m only a volunteer in the Film & Video Archive Dept at Duxford so if you need definitive answers to queries best give them a call.

I’m sure a certain “Spitfire polisher” will correct any incorrect info I may have posted…

It sounds as if you are doing a splendid job, Bob!

I would add, however, that the IWM (I think?) clips seen time and time again on all period documentaries – the scramble bell, guys running to 65 Squadron Spitfires, taking off in Masters and then shooting down a He 111 (clouds of smoke and port gear dropping) from a Hurricane IIc all seem to be the “standard” package released on request to film companies needing footage. I would also add that the IWM charge film companies hundreds of pounds per second for this stuff. So, it begs the question; if all this film is put onto a database will it be generally viewable or ever likely to be supplied to film companies as infinitely more viewable and historicaly interesting material? If so, at what cost to production companies?

So that’s why we see the same old BoB GC footage over and over again. It’s a pity that in this anniversary year that they could not release some of this film. I hope it’s not been destroyed.

If not destroyed, why don’t they release it?

It hasn’t been destroyed. The RAF gave the IWM a shed load of film a few years back and this is the stuff I have been working through since 2006, until recently alone, with the aim to have the film on the IWM Collections database.
Relatives or interested parties then can search the Collections for relevant material.
There is interesting stuff, as well as underexposed, out of focus, clips and the aim is to make it available. There have been requests to access film since this project started so the work done so far has borne fruit.
It would be great to have it all available to view online but this runs alongside other archiving of film.

Lots of names crop up I recognise, recently for example, a F/O Gentile of 133 Sqdn. Target was a FW 190. I wondered if that was the Don Gentile…
I filed that away to ruminate on later and half way through the film another name appeared. F/Lt Blakeslee also of 133 Sqdn engaging FW190’s and a Dornier 217. Now that was two names, could this be Don Blakeslee? It was only a few entries later that “Eagle Squadron” appeared after 133 Sqdn, that the names finally dropped into place.

From Wikipedia – Don Blakeslee – “During the raid against Dieppe, France on August 18, 1942, Blakeslee shot down a further FW-190, and another probably destroyed on the 19th, thus achieving ace status.”
There is a possibility that the clip I had just seen was this very “probable” which gave him “ace status”.

Still a bit of film for us to get through but hopefully it will start to see the light soon.

why is the gun footage still being held back? Was it possible for film to be re-used / recorded over?
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Not being “held back” as such. Now it has moved from the RAF to IWM it needs cataloguing. I think the RAF’s original plan for the films was to just to destroy it. That would have a shame. While some of it as I mention is pretty poor quality it’s the record of the pilot, squadron, date, time and target that each clip starts with that is just as important IMO.
The film couldn’t be re-used – not video tape but 16mm black and white film. Much of it at the start of my part in this was negative film and this has switched to positive film.

No, because they have just had the film developed. It’s very frustrating this cross-Atlantic incompatibility – I know there are several Region 1 DVDs I’d like to see.:(

know that feeling ! But this isnt the case here, this and other videos from UK news sites arnt available in Ireland either.

why is the gun footage still being held back? Was it possible for film to be re-used / recorded over?

Certainly seems to be old news that the TV people have just latched on to – In the film the aircraft is described as having lain in the ground for more than 50 but less than 60 years, giving a dig date before 2004.

Also found this article from the local Echo newspaper staing that the daughter visted the museum in August 2009 & made the donations then and the dig took place 11 years before! So it looks like they were even slower of the mark!

Now I have found fragments of film on digs and even a complete GC magazine full of film, but very well baked, once, but have never heard of any dug film being developed – even though everyone seems to get very excited by the possibilty when camera remains turn up! In this case the film was obviously not dug, but surely it must have been developed? but probably no-one had a projector to play it? Would un-developed film survive in a processable state for so long?

Looks like an FW190 to me. The implication in the report is that the footage was taken by the pilot during his career.

And don’t you love the classic cub TV reporter quote…”The houses behind me did not exist during the war, but if they had, and the Mustang had crashed into them, there would have been terrible loss of life”.

Priceless.

So that’s why we see the same old BoB GC footage over and over again. It’s a pity that in this anniversary year that they could not release some of this film. I hope it’s not been destroyed.

If not destroyed, why don’t they release it?

The vast majority of the stuff shot by RAF pilots remained in the RAF ‘vaults’.

So that’s why we see the same old BoB GC footage over and over again. It’s a pity that in this anniversary year that they could not release some of this film. I hope it’s not been destroyed.

I think the USAAF pilots probably got ‘souvenir copies’ of some of their missions – I had to view a reel of film sent to the museum by someone in the US whose relative was based with one of the USAAF squadrons at Duxford.
The vast majority of the stuff shot by RAF pilots remained in the RAF ‘vaults’.

It certainly makes a nice change to watch colour GC film.

The report says that his daughter donated her fathers jacket, and the film to the museum, and that it would be returned to her, so presumably it has been developed, but unseen by her, because of its format; obviously not from the last mission.

I didn’t get the impression that the film was dug up with the Mustang. Pretty extraordinary if it was…and that was a piece of information I must have missed in the broadcast.

Also got the impression that this was quite “old” news….ie that the wreck was recovered some long while ago??

Ahh…didn’t get that the gun cam footage was dug up with Mustang.

This was not the impression I had when watching the news report. He turned back with engine troubles upon reaching the enemy coast. Would the camera have contained a previous flights footage?. I would have thought fresh film was loaded for the next mission. Or am I missing something?

The aircraft was P-51D of the 339thFG,503 Fighter squadron, serial 44-15560 coded D7:V named “Oswego Special” Captain John W Gokey baled out 11 December 1944 over Frinton,Essex.
picture of Capt Gokey here thanks to Little Friends http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/gallery.php?Group=339&Style=item&origStyle=list&Item=82&Temp=1136&searchString= P-51 in the photo is an earlier Mustang not the D version.

No, because they have just had the film developed. It’s very frustrating this cross-Atlantic incompatibility – I know there are several Region 1 DVDs I’d like to see.:(

Ahh…didn’t get that the gun cam footage was dug up with Mustang. I thought it might be stock footage dug up for the news report.

I’m wondering if it’s the same P-47 gun-cam footage that’s been debated before where an aircraft is misidentified as a T-152

No, because they have just had the film developed. It’s very frustrating this cross-Atlantic incompatibility – I know there are several Region 1 DVDs I’d like to see.:(

Video not viewable outside of the UK…..

But I’m wondering if it’s the same P-47 gun-cam footage that’s been debated before where an aircraft is misidentified as a T-152 or distorted video of an Me109.

Look from 0:09 to 0:11 for the “Ta-152”. (Mute the volume if you don’t want to suffer through 11 seconds of somebody’s poor choice in musical taste.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNYklOsjvZ0&feature=fvw

It’s always nice to add some ‘flesh’ to the bones of gun camera film….