Thunderbolt recovery Devon County

It will Probably will be on Spitfire spares website, Graham is a member of that group !

Pictures here
http://spitfirespares.com/SPITFIRESPARES.COM/pages/Thunderbolt%20recovery.html

Went the day well?

Sounds like a good day had by all 😀 Really sorry I missed it 🙁 – the invite was still much appreciated and I really would have rather been there than surrounded by screaming kids! But duty called! :rolleyes:

Ian

Thanks

430915 DURLIN, ROBERT G P-47 42-8420 TRURO, ENGLAND 353 LOST/OUT OF FUEL

Paul

Expert JCB work as well!

It was a very early loss, P47 42-8420 abandoned by Capt R C Durlin, 15th September 1943. Lost coming back from an escort mission to the Paris area. Some interesting pieces came out, mainly engine and ancilliaries. The plane hit solid shale at about eight feet so the recovery crew didn’t have too difficult a job. Weather awful. Devon cream teas and pasties top notch. Hospitality faultless, the farmer was a really good bloke.

Well done all involved

Any chance of a serial ??

Regards

Paul

dig

COR that engine cleaned up a beauty,
very suprised it wasnt dug years ago mate, very commendable in finding it,

wish i had been there, ahh well next time:D

Thunderbolt

Thanks “Mercle” you beat me to the post

Yes a very sucessfull recovery was carried out last weekend which did not look promersing due to the bad weather, however with a excellent landowner not wanting us to get wet and a clear opening in the sky, a full recovery was achieved with the help of a few cups cream tea, cornish paties and clotted scones & jam greatfully to the team of the farmer

As a boy the landowner actually seen the Thunderbolt crash on his farm in a late september evening in 1943 with the pilot bailing out safely, luckly for the team with witnesses becomming increasing difficult to find he remembered exactly where it crashed, telling us that he remembers the recovery team giving up trying to retreive the aircraft from the smoking crator 64 years ago. Keen to check out the accuracy of our witness he took us out into the open field and said its by here, sure enough he was about 15ft from the impact point located by our magnetometer which indicated the remians of a large radial buried.

All the nessary permissons were obtained off the MOD to recover the american fighter and a licence was granted, I will post a link with full details of the recovery, aircraft detail, pilot and its interesting history here when our webpage has been uploaded including a few photos of the finds when they go on display, all of which are in the process of being clean up so it may take a few weeks especally as complaints have been made the state the boys come back in after a wash off:D .

Still a lot of cleaning to do on the engine and articfacts yet but after close inspection even the merlin boys would fail to get this running dispite its preservation in the mud with all its paint still good as new:diablo:

It will Probably will be on Spitfire spares website, Graham is a member of that group !

Great news, has it been lifted out of the ground?
________
Vapir No2 Vaporizer