There is a very special sense of being there in your pics and also you have taken the trouble to mention how you felt. I managed to get excited just by watching the Tv news coverage from my home office in North Scotland so you must have had a pounding heart on the spot !!!

I think these UE are putting themselves at great risk of injury. They make an assumption that they only face a hazard from the condition of the property, ie loose floor panels, asbestos etc.

But it is well known that criminals will hide items in semi abandoned places and also will use extreme violence to deal with intruders,you only have to watch one episode of Mc Intyre talking to members of the underworld to realise that these people have no concern about sorting out intruders.

Also the UE crowd assume that owners will be calm and just escort them off the property. Well some have used shotguns and made it clear they have booby trapped locations.

I think they would be better off taking up caving, climbing,surfing etc..

Can you just confirm what is now left at the P5090 site ,Elliott ?

If the items in the last set of pics have gone it was a big recovery and I have a feeling that someone will know. But before I start asking around its useful to have an idea what was removed.

Sunderland origins

Doc Stirling,

the RAF museum Sunderland ML 824 was saved by the Sunderland trust which was set up by Peter Thomas later to found Skyfame. He was a far sighted person who used the letters pages of Flight International to raise awareness of the need to preserve aircraft. The Sunderland flew into Pembroke Dock in 1961 in its Aeronavale markings,moved to Hendon in 1971. His son is planning to write a book about his fathers battle to save our air heritage at a time when few official bodies had any interest.

The ex night club Sunderland ML796 is at Duxford,it is also ex Aeronavale and was moved by road and sea in five truck convoy in June 1976 from La Baule.France. This one actually served in the Berlin air lift while 824 was in reserve.

Thanks Denis,can I pay you with a pound coin which was once stardust?

You are lucky to have one potentially airworthy Spitfire in Holland, in Scotland we have no flyers and the Spitfires based in England are closer to Holland than Scotland !

Recycling in WW2 was not very advanced,for example all the cooking pots/kettles gathered by Boy scouts into huge piles at scrapyards in Uk for WW2 aluminum aircraft building were never used. You could still see these mounds in the sixties at several yards in Blackpool for example.

They were collected entirely as a morale boosting scheme so that the civvies could believe they were helping the war effort on the home front,same applied to a lot of iron railings as well.

p38

thanks for the info on the p38 pics Dave, confusion on my part seems to be due too the way the pics were printed., neither AAA or WWIG mag had a big budget, I think we were all happy just to have any printed mags on such a narrow interest subject. I still have all the early issues and used to contribute as G Brindle to AAA mag.