ianwoodward9If you wish to move the above image into another thread, longshot, please feel free to do so. I included it here merely to show the inside of Scottish Aviations’s facilities.
As regards RAF Heathfield/Ayr, it was never actually IN Ayr. Heathfield, as a district, would have been regarded as part of Ayr but the boundary between Ayr and Prestwick was south of the old aerodrome. I will come on to the crash, so please bear with me whilst I address the Ayr or not-Ayr question.
I attach some detail from a 1964 Ordnance Survey map of that area. The principal roads are correct to 1963, the others to 1962, so represent the situation as on my last of my three aviation visits to Prestwick. Coming out of the railway station, you would head east to the junction with the A79, turn north, cross the railway line and the stream and take (I think) the second right to get to Orangefield House, which would be on the right, in the grey area backing on to the (virtually) triangular apron for parked aircraft.
On the map, I have placed one red dot on the A79, just below “MS” (which is where I lived for a few months in the very late 1960s), and another in the middle of the grey built-up area a little south-east of the first (which is where I lived for several years in the 1970s).
The site of RAF Heathfield/Ayr is clearly shown south of Prestwick, marked “Aerodrome (disused)”. When I drove down that ‘yellow’ (roughly) north-south back road from Prestwick towards Ayr, I was never really aware that there had been an airfield there before. The boundary between Prestwick and Ayr was only just north of that (roughly) NW>SE yellow road above the name “Newton” (the start of Newton Upon Ayr). The old aerodrome was not actually in Ayr but Ayr was the larger of the two towns.
Turning now to the crash of AM260, I do not believe that the Prestwick runway running (roughly) north-south on the east side of the attached map was built at the time of the crash. I would be happy to be disabused of this notion but that’s my sense from some WWII aerial photos available on-line. The two runways to which Edgar Wynn referred were those covered by the words “Prestwick Airport” on the attached map. There must be a crash report somewhere, probably with a sketch map but, if so, I’ve never seen it. My reading of Wynn’s words is that AM260 took off from the northern end of that shorter runway, crossed the longer runway, then veered to port, across the grass and straight into the embankment for the railway line running NW>SE just south of the words “Prestwick Airport”.
The crash would have been clearly seen from the triangular aircraft parking apron (to which I referred earlier) or from the buildings in the grey area just above and NW of the apron. There was, in fact, an open area between the buildings and the apron (see the photo of the Boston parked there in one of my earlier posts), so the crash could have been seen by anyone outside in that open area. Also, the buildings themselves (which I think were the same ones as when I first visited) had windows looking on to the open area, with the triangular aircraft apron area behind that and the shorter runway beyond that again. The crash could have been seen by someone looking out of a window. It all fits, to my mind. It must have been just awful to witness it, let alone …………..
Comments and corrections welcome.
ianwoodward9The photograph below was apparently taken at Whitchurch from just inside a hangar on the north side of the airfield, the one used by KLM in WWII. The aircraft parked across from the hangar is “Zilverreiger”, presumably wearing its G-AGBE markings; the ex-PH-ARZ.
ianwoodward9This photograph is anachronistic for this thread, in that it was apparently taken in January 1967. Nevertheless, it does show the inside of the Scottish Aviation factory at Prestwick and, if you ignore some of the ‘detail’, you might easily imagine it to be a WWII scene – six Daks being overhauled there.
ianwoodward9I thought there had been some discussion of those crashes but perhaps, since I have been stimulated by this thread to get and read the McVicar book and the Christie book (only part-way through the latter), I have become a bit befuddled and read about the crashes in those.
In respect of the crash of AM260, there is a suggestion that the pilot, Richard Stafford was apparently distracted by personal/family matters and somehow driven to crash it. Edgar Wynn, whose book “Bombers Across” I have not read, witnessed the crash and is quoted by Christie, who calls it “a virtual suicide run”.
Also, I am curious as to why the crash should be located as “Ayr”. As described by Wynn, Stafford taxied AM260 out, turned on to the shorter runway, revved the engines for a take-off into a slipping wind, bounced over the slight rise where the two runways crossed, veered on to the grass, making no attempt to brake, and straight towards a 6-foot railway embankment. The nose section went 60 feet into the air and landed over the railway track. All of this tragedy seems to have happened within the confines of the airport at Prestwick. Why is it given as “Ayr”?
ianwoodward9That’s an intriguing story about Myron Taylor visiting the Pope, longshot; if I have read it before, I had entirely forgotten about it. Just fascinating stuff.
I don’t know the history but I think Vatican City was not occupied by the fascist forces in WWII (I seem to remember a Gregory Peck film for which that ‘anomaly’ underpinned the plot). If I am right, then Vatican City was neutral territory and, if the car from the airport in Rome to Vatican City carried diplomatic plates, then Mr Taylor may not, technically, have entered enemy territory – enemy airspace, for sure (but lots did that), and I am not certain of the status of the ground from the bottom of the aircraft’s steps to the Vatican City car. Perhaps the car went right up to the aircraft’s steps. Is there anything in the story about that?
ianwoodward9Yes, longshot, “in secret understanding” was an intriguing phrase to use but I have no idea what he meant. Were there any independent Danish ‘authorities’ with whom the allied authorities could reach an understanding?
As to the paint scheme, it does indeed seem odd that DDL should retain ‘neutrality’ colours after the German invasion but apparently it did so.
In their 2013 book on DDL’s Fw-200s, Mulder and Ott are not definite as to the exact dates involved but suggest that OY-DEM wore the basic orange colour from early 1940 until late September 1945. For the last month or so of that period, a Danish flag (red with a white cross) was painted on the fin in pennant form (what they call a “!split flag”) and a red and white roundel was painted on the side of the rear fuselage, just forward of the “OY-DEM”. Along the top of the fuselage, above the cabin windows, the black “DANMARK”, in the same large letters as before, was retained but moved slightly nearer the nose.
ianwoodward9Finally today, another poor image but an usual one, I think. An American magazine in November 1941 carried an article to mark the two years since La Guardia Airport had opened on 6 December 1939. Spread across two pages was this image of the inside of Pan Am’s hangar.
ianwoodward9I am going to try to upload the previous link here, just in case:
https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1941/1941%20-%201412.html?search=June%2026th%20BOA
If you opened the link in the above post, just ignore it here
ianwoodward9The link is to an article in FLIGHT headlined, “FROM PAN AM TO BOA” and the photograph above the headline is of Boeing 314A G-AGBZ “Bristol”. I have seen several, slightly different, photographs of this scene.
EDIT – the image failed to upload – I’ll try again
https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1941/1941%20-%201412.html?search=June%2026th%20BOA
The following information may be known but, in case not, here are some bits and pieces gained from an internet trawl earlier today.
The photograph was taken on 16 May 1941 at La Guardia after G-AGBZ had been wheeled out of Pan Am’s hangar.
On 8 April 1941, it had been flown from Seattle to New York, presumably as NC18607.
On 19 April 1941, at 2.30pm, it was flown to Port Washington (a 10-minute flight) to be handed over officially to Britain, possibly still as NC18607. At 4 pm the same day, it returned to La Guardia.
In the next roughly three weeks, it was in Pan Am’s hangar at La Guardia, during which period the camouflage and British markings were applied.
On 16 May 1941, it emerged into the daylight wearing its ‘warpaint’, as above. One of the photographs taken on this day (a similar view to the one in the link) shows a lot of people in the foreground, including two mean wearing hats with pieces of white card in them – journalists. This was presumably press day.
[On this day, BOA(C)’s second Boeing 314, according to the contemporary press, was in Bowery Bay, which is very close to La Guardia, and was destined to be called “Boston”, but the third Boeing was still in Seattle]
On 22 May 1941, G-AGBZ arrived at Foynes, its opeartional base.
On 26 May 1941, she returned to Foynes following her inaugural trip to West Africa.
By 15 June 1941, her two sister ships (G-AGCA “Berwick” – not “Boston” – and G-AGCB “Bangor”) were at Foynes, too.
ianwoodward9As sort-of promised in an earlier post, here’s that photograph of a Pan Am Clipper over the Statue of Liberty. Seeing it again, it has an artificial ‘look’ to it. I can’t spot the ‘joins’ but the shadow on NC18610 doesn’t match the shadow on the statue. I strongly suspect that it’s a put-together job. Genuine or fake, I’d be interested in your views. If fake, can anyone locate the original of the Clipper photo that was grafted on?
ianwoodward9Earlier in this thread, questions were raised concerning OY-DEM (DDL’s other Fw-200 – the one that did not end up on the British civil register) and I offered some comments. Since then, I have come across this, a 1957 letter from OY-DEM’s captain that covers much the same ground but from the man who would know:
ianwoodward9This is a still from the above Pathe newsreel and the Scottish Airlines DC-3 can be identified as G-AGZF. The airline’s logo, to which reference was made in some earlier posts, can be seen on the fin. It looks to me as though the aircraft is taking off in a roughly easterly direction – that is, away from the coast – and into the early morning sun:
ianwoodward9This brief newsreel is about the under-use of Prestwick Airport post-WWII.
It is relevant to this thread because there is a brief glimpse of a Liberator being worked on in a hangar and of a Scottish Airlines DC-3 taking off.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/the-prestwick-mystery/query/Prestwick+Airport
ianwoodward9I meant the quality of the photograph, planemike. I appreciate your comment and I am pleased that you have found the thread of interest.
This link will give a brief videoclip that includes a Clipper taking off at La Guardia:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/new-seaplane-base/query/Pan+Am+Clipper#
ianwoodward9Here’s the Pan Am Clipper poster to which I referred earlier (“Wings To Europe”):
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