Having a bit of a root-out up in the loft, came across a copy of High Ground Wrecks and Relics, which contains a littel bit about the Mickle Fell Stirling.
Stirling III LK488, coded QQ-E, was on strength with 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Wratting Common when she crashed on Mickle Fell in October 1944, killing all the crew except the tail gunner. The book says ‘this wreck was one of the most intact in Britain until its recovery in 1980’, and has a couple of pictures of the recovery operation. The caption quotes, “…a combined operation between the RAF and members of the Air Training Corps. The substantial wreck was airlifted off using a Puma HC.1. Sadly, the decision was later taken to scrap all the remains.”
Now, when I first read that passage (a few years ago, the book is dated 1997), I was absolutely outraged, but I later recall seeing pictures of some of the wreckage in store at the RAF Museum’s reserve store at Cardington.
So I’ve got a few questions about this. Has this wreckage survived the move to Cosford? How much of the aircraft does the RAFM still have, and what do the RAFM intend to do with it?
By: Ross_McNeill - 13th April 2003 at 23:17
Fortress
Hi mmitch,
I’ve heard this one described as both a Stirling or a Lancaster.
In actual fact it was a B-17G-10-BO, 42-31243. Remaining engines and some parts recovered a few years ago.
The Lifeboat record of service was:
“Walmer, Kent.
At two o’clock in the afternoon of the 1st of December 1943, the coastguard reported an American Flying Fortress aeroplane down in the sea a mile north of the Guildford Hotel in Pegwell Bay. A moderate north-west wind was blowing. The sea was smooth. The lifeboat was not needed, and four of her crew put out in the motor boat ‘Terrier’. She was overtaken by two air sea rescue launches and the coastguard signalled the ‘Terrier’ to return.
Rewards £1 to two men. The other two men had been rewarded by the Bevan Trustees.”
(Source: Supplement to Annual Reports of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution 1939-46)
Regards
Ross
By: mmitch - 13th April 2003 at 20:42
A couple of years ago I was told that at very low tides the tailplane of a Stirling could be seen in the sea on the final approach to Manston’s (Kent) runway. It was of course used as an emergency strip for aircraft in trouble. In fact there was a (dream) scheme to dive on several wrecks. But nothing happened.
mmitch.
By: Bluebird Mike - 13th April 2003 at 17:45
Yes, I’ve seen this one before Steve-a good effort to keep a ‘lost’ type alive, though the pictures haven’t been changed in an age, so I don’t know what the current state of this build is.
By: Hatton - 13th April 2003 at 11:16
for those of you who have never visited this site before
http://www.stirling.box.nl/project.htm
its not a bad attempt by the looks of it, not sure how accurate it is though. Either way, looks good.
– steve
By: Bluebird Mike - 12th April 2003 at 17:21
Hey, perhaps we could rip the wings off Hendon’s Sunderland, bolt ’em onto their few real bits of Stirling, build the rest out of wood and call it a ‘Stirling’…we could then keep it next to Elvington’s ‘Halifax’!!!
(Lancman dives for cover!!!)
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
By: Ross_McNeill - 12th April 2003 at 08:23
Stirling EF311
Hi,
Your Solent Stirling was EF311 a Stirling MkIV from No.196 Sqn at Keevil that ditched in the early hours of the 28th August 1944 after losing a prop on an SOE operation.
Regards
Ross
By: Paul Cushion - 12th April 2003 at 01:48
Well I reckon that there must be one or two at the bottom of a Fjord somewhere……. it stands to reason that one must have ditched in similar circumstances to the recovered Halifaxes……… anyone know of any contenders?
Paul.
By: Arabella-Cox - 12th April 2003 at 01:06
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part, but there’s one big area of Europe which I’ve never heard mentioned in relation to aircraft wrecks.
Stirlings carried out a number of raids on Italian industrial targets during 1941 / 42, and a fair amount of them failed to make it back. Losing an engine wasn’t much fun at the best of times, but when exhausted crews found themselves trying to struggle home on three, the very last thing they’d want in their way would be Europe’s highest mountain range. 🙁
Undoubtedly, Stirlings must have to come to grief up there, and I doubt that much effort would have been put into removing the wreckage as it’s such an inaccessible area. I’ve always wondered what may still be lying up there in the Alps….
By: dhfan - 12th April 2003 at 00:50
They found one at the bottom of the Solent a few years ago.
Article was in Aeroplane Monthly and Roy Conyers Nesbit wrote the blurb, I think.
Apart from the fact that the Solent’s too busy to do much, ferocious tides had ground the top of it away, upper surface of wings as well. Would have been a good start but totally impractical I gather.
By: Bluebird Mike - 11th April 2003 at 20:49
Hear hear, we really need to get a Stirling together from somewhere.
By: British Canuck - 11th April 2003 at 19:58
Other possible Stirling Airframes
I am sure that I had read about other crashed Stirling aircraft that are currently in deep water.. maybe one day someone will get motivated $$ and savage one..but hopefully with better luck that the German FW Condor that was recovered a few years ago!
By: HP57 - 11th April 2003 at 18:30
Yes, that would be a sensible thing to do with the wreckage in storage.
I have some photographs I got from the Stirling Project and although battered the sections can be of great value to reconstruct the drawings necessary to build a Stirling. But I also heard from them that the RAFM doesn’t want to give it up (why not, they did that with the AW Albemarle sections). The same goes for the museum at Vraux, France who have some thirty feet of Stirling fuselage but members of the Stirling Project have already visited it but the bottom is missing as well as fairly hacked about on the inside, and the French are not giving it away either.
For your information, the RAFM also have a Hercules engine and propellor as well as the complete tailwheelassembly of Stirling BF353 which crashed in the IJsselmeer, Holland and was recovered by the Dutch AF during the sixties.
Let’s give the Stirling the much needed boost it so richly deserves. After all, the famous trio of RAF heavies complemented each other.
Cheers
Freddy a.k.a Cees
By: British Canuck - 8th April 2003 at 19:57
Stirling Cockpit Project
Maybe they could combine the RAF Museum’s Stirling wreckage with the Stirling Cockpit Project (which is processing nicely) and voila…a Stirling is create or recreated!
Doesn’t the French also have some Stirling fuselage sections too!
By: Bluebird Mike - 8th April 2003 at 18:58
As such a historically important and under-represented aircraft, the Stirling deserves to have what little of it remains put on show no matter how mangled or incomplete it may be; and general Joe Public should then do well not to criticise ‘dusty mangled metal’ but actually use his brain and THINK about the aircraft, and REMEMBER it.
We could always get shot of that B-17 and plonk it there..!!!
(Lancman runs and hides!!!)
:p 😉
By: David Burke - 8th April 2003 at 18:45
The Spitfire in question was LF XVIe SL574. She was in no way ‘airworthy’ having suffered a forced landing on a cricket pitch on the 20th September 1959 after which she was repaired to a static standard . Then followed many years doing gate gard duty at Bentley Priory.
Whether your impressed is neither here nor there – simply put the RAF museum did the deal and there is no point critisising them after the event.
By: Willow - 8th April 2003 at 08:19
It’s all very well to suggest selling the RAF Museums current Mustang, but it must be remembered that it was swapped with a very complete (airworthy?) Spitfire XVI. I believe the swap was done with The San Diego Museum.
Whatever they sell the Mustang for now is effectively what they have got for a fully restored Spitfire XVI.
Not impressed.
Willow
By: anneorac - 8th April 2003 at 08:15
It’s not complete. Although the main structures are there it is rather mashed and the FN20 is missing.
ANNE
By: Arabella-Cox - 8th April 2003 at 00:07
I’m with Moggy on most of his comments, but if the RAF Museum have the complete tail section (as seems to have been suggested) of LK488 in their posession, I really do think that it merits a place in the Bomber Command Hall. Surely it’s best that a substantial part of such a significant aircraft is put on display to the public.
After all, RAFM have seen fit to display the nose of a Victor, and wreckage of a Hampden, Hurricane and Gladiator over the years, all in as relevant a context as possible. With the exception of the Hampden, the Museum owns complete examples of each of these aircraft at either Hendon or Cosford, but no complete Stirlings remain, and to date there are no substantial Stirling remains on public display; a chance to rectify that I think…
By: mmitch - 7th April 2003 at 19:56
Ironic isn’t it that the P51 in the American Air Museum at Duxford is a replica because a ‘real’ one was too expensive!
Another American aircraft that has served the RAF well is the Hercules and there are none preserved in any UK museum yet.
mmitch
By: David Burke - 7th April 2003 at 18:29
I don’t know the exact nature of the loan or donation of the Mustang but it’s entirely up to the owner what he does with it.
A Mustang is very relevant to the UK as it was the British Purchasing commission that was responsible for the initiation of the Mustang design and it’s first combat was with RAF pilots.
The RAF operated the Mustang IV (D) later in the war and they were a constant escort to the B-17’s of the Eighth Air Force
when flown by the US fighter groups . An example of the Fortress
is in the Bomber Command hall so what could be more appropriate.
The current Mustang the museum has isn’t very complete or indeed in good order so the museum could quite possibly sell her
back to the U.S. I had the opportunity to inspect her during my trade training at Halton and she isn’t marvellous.
All in all we will see more warbirds grounded in the next few years as insurance and operating costs continue to spiral upwards.
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April 6, 2003 at 12:13 am