Adrian, my understanding of Tony Doyle’s note was that ‘Festoon’ applied to all flights to Moscow, in both directions, on the northern, winter route (the one on the map I posted in #258) and that ‘Sealyham’ applied to all flights to Moscow using the southern, or summer, route, which would have been across North Africa, via Cairo to the Middle East and then ‘up’ to Moscow.

As for ‘Goodwill’ and ‘Medoc’, were there any reciprocal services from Moscow and back flown by Russian aircraft? If there were, I don’t recall mention of them and would like a bit more information.

As for ‘B.O.A.’, that foreshortened acronym seems to have got quite wide usage at the time and, with no advertising by the corporation in the war years, it would have been difficult to establish the long-form version.

Adrian mentioned the code name ‘Festoon’ in Post # 257. Some time back, Matt sent me some information drawn from research undertaken by Tony Doyle in the Air Ministry archive – to be precise, in the notes, often handwritten, in the files of the Intelligence Section of the Air Ministry Department of Civil Aviation. Tony had combined this information with other reports and the entry for June 1943 starts as follows:

“Code words on the Russian service. ‘Sealyham’ = British service to Russia, southbound route; ‘Festoon’ ditto, northbound route; ‘Goodwill’ = Russian service to UK northbound flight; ‘Medoc’ ditto southbound flight”.

Tony gives the source of this information as: “Mr Colbeck’s report on flight to Russia”

The Liberator in the background during the opening few seconds of that newsreel footage (Post # 263) is an American Air Force one, by the way.

And I’ve pieced this together (rather inexpertly, I’m afraid, but I’m short of time) from four frames at the start of the newsreel:

The other question is the route taken. Though it was winter, my guess would be the summer (southern) route. Flying such people across enemy-held territory, which would be necessary if the the northern route were used, would be far too risky.

That, in turn, raises the question of an initial survey flight for the southern route. When was this carried out and using which aircraft?

Thanks, Adrian. That all sounds entirely logical to me – a ‘small’ accident, a wait for spares, getting the C of A renewal and so on – it would all take time. And, if AM259 was involved in transporting high-ranking officials to that major conference, then they would be extra careful about preparing it for the trip, too. I presume it would have stayed at Prestwick during this period.

From what i can gather, there were three aircraft involved in going to the Moscow meeting from Britain. Of course, it could have been three trips by the same aircraft but that seems a tad unlikely. I guess that they would have used Liberators and I suspect they would have left from Lyneham or Northolt. but not from Prestrwick. The passengers being important people, the closest airfield to London seems likely. Confirmation of this would be welcome. Maybe there is some newsreel footage of them leaving and/or returning or contemporary press coverage…

I’m really tied up for much of the rest of this week and this is likely to extend into next week, so I won’t be able to do much digging or posting for a while. If you find any additional information,please post it it, as I’ll try to look in on this site in the meantime..

Below I have merely added the two Stornoway stopovers identified by Adrian in Post # 256 [above].

1942-10-21/22 = Prestwick > Moscow [1^st flight to Moscow]
1942-10-28/29 = Moscow > Prestwick
1942-11-22/23 = Prestwick > Moscow [2^nd Moscow service]
1942-11-27/28 = Moscow > Prestwick

1943-01-04/05 = Prestwick > Moscow [3^rd Moscow service]
1943-01-10/11 = Moscow > Prestwick
1943-01-24/25 = Prestwick > Moscow [4^th Moscow service]
1943-01-27/28 = Moscow > Prestwick
1943-02-17/18 = Prestwick > Moscow [5^th Moscow service]
1943-02-21/22 = Moscow > Prestwick
1943-03-03/04 = Prestwick >.Moscow [6^th Moscow service]
1943-03-07/08 = Moscow > Stornoway > Prestwick
1943-03-18/19 = Prestwick > Moscow [7^th Moscow service]
1943-03-22/23 = Moscow > Stornoway > Prestwick
1943-04-04/05 = Prestwick > Moscow [8^th Moscow service]
1943-04-07/08 = Moscow > Prestwick

For a while, the map I put up in the immediately preceding Post #258 could not be expanded, which meant that it was pretty pointless. That problem seems to have been corrected, so clicking on the image should reveal its detail now. I dare say that , somewhere in the archive, there will be documentation explaining why that particular route was taken.

In the summer, when the extended hours of daylight precluded using the northern route, they used the southern route. The aircraft flew via Cairo, with other stops en route in the Middle East, flying northwards over the U.S.S.R. to a place called Kuibyshev, where it turned to fly due [more or less] west to Moscow.