Recovery of Stirling BK716

What a lovely memorial.

The commemoration of the crews of BK716 & BK710 took place yesterday with family members in attendance.

A link to the event is below including the unveiling of the memorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfs1GF_djM

regards

John

Hi all

Just found this documentary comissioned by the Local Government in Almere on the recovery of BK716.

It runs for 30 minutes and includes recovery of the aircraft including identification of the human remains and also interviews with family members. In Dutch and English with subtitles

http://vliegenoverpolderlijnen.nl/

take care

John

Great and worthy  work indeed.

There appears little evidence of the wing structure except for the heavy big  items that hang off it, the huge aluminium spars caps would surely survive in long lengths and I doubt the dredger would cut them up, clearly it went in with some force so presumably either:

1) wing recovered years ago with the heavy parts cut off and left in mud or broke off by their own inertia on impact

2) engine/uc parts found had already fallen off wing during midair break up/explosion

The recoveries in recent years from the polders seems to suggest there are no sizebly intact AIRFRAME parts left, I recall they recovered much post war  so maybe its a case of what wrecks left were ones too broken up to be worth their while and/or wrecks that have already been partially salvaged in the past?

A different video this time showing the adaptation of the original memorial to the crew of BK710 to include the crew of BK716

https://markernieuws.com/2020/14851.htm

John

I enjoyed it John without !

apologies all

I’ve seen a video of this on Vimeo that had subtitles, but requires a password, I assumed incorrectly that this would have as well. I’ll see if I can find a subtitled version

John

Thank you John, very good to see, I sort of understood what was being said.

Hi all

just seen this update on the recovery, in Dutch with English subtitles.

It gives an idea of the amount of structure recovered, with one receptacle on the barge being full to the brim!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrWSpr1gT3I&t=4s

John

Certainly does, very sobering

Much respect to the RNLAF and to the local Dutch authorities, the cost of this undertaking was not to be sniffed at

John

good article, makes you think what they went through in those last seconds.

An update on the recovery from BBC Norfolk

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-54517476

There are some photos of recovered artefacts in the article

John

Some of the larger items recovered shown in this article

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/09/sunken-history-raising-the-wreck-…

John

Hear hear to the above.

Old Towzer.

Well done to all that got this recovery done, including all the individuals who never seem to get the pat on the back they deserve.

A few big parts and lots of little ones.Cant wait to see it all laid out.

Hi all

The recovery of BK716 was completed last Friday (9/10), see the following report

https://www.defensie.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020/10/09/berging-britse-bommen…

John

Thank you for the update and confirmation

Courtesy of http://zzairwar.nl/

22nd Sept – Last Friday some small human bone fragments were recovered. They were not identifiable at this stage. The bone condition was poor, quality for DNA-extraction insufficient. The search will go on for another 2,5 weeks. Every find will be send to the Dutch Army Identification Centre for further research.

Great news, I really hope they find the remains of each crew member that perished so they can all be finally no longer missing.

RIP to one and all of them