ErrolC thanks for the link. The photos are great. Always good to see an aviation legend still going strong after all these years, the spits looked good too.

By early 1960’s, when Miss Lee’s name was removed from the phone book, she would have been in her early 40’s. You could try searching newspapers from the area looking for deaths and marriages. Have you tried ancestry.com ? You say his father received a photograph, are you aware if all of his personal effects reached his father? The death of a service member generates a lot of paperwork, you could try the National archives for his file. In Australia, searching the National archives for a dead pilot usually provides significantly more documents about the disposition of remains and personal effects than the actual accident/loss. Do you know the general area of the channel where he was last seen? A lot more surveying and marine activity has taken place since 1944. As the recent Do217 recovery shows, planes don’t just disappear once they go beneath the waves.

No.

Would any member take offence if I suggested that the “Maid of Harlech” was just one P-38 of the 10,000 built, with no particularly “Historic” value? And that the world of Old Aircraft Preservation/Restoration would be better served if a private individual(of some financial independence) acquired ownership and used the corroded wreckage to build jigs, use as patterns for new parts and de-rivet it to isolate any small parts which might still be useable? there are plenty of ditched P-38s in the pacific with far more historic value than “The Maid”. Just because it’s accessible and close to civilization, should not give it the importance it seems to have.

If it were something the drivers had done on many previous occasions without problems, then why suspect this time might be different?

The truth is that quite a number of forum members have already found buried WW2 aircraft, what remained was badly corroded, not capable of being made airworthy, not particularly interesting as museum exhibits and, only rarely, useful as patterns. Unfortunately this is not news worthy and does not rate media coverage. What the general public prefers is the non sensical believe that buried airframes exist in remarkable condition, awaiting assembly so that they can once more grace the skies. And there are certainly individuals out there who will feed and play on that notion. Good luck to them, Prey deserves to be eaten. It only concerns me when people of influence start to believe these fantasies, because that usually ends in hard earned resources(ie time and money) being squandered.

As to why the producers feel the Army Museum of Flying would want another Spitfire is beyond me. They already have the excellent restoration pictured above. Nice one Ross.

Andy, all these Spitfire identity questions of late, are you trying to lure Mark 12 out of his self imposed Forum exile?