Tangmere,

The identity of TB885 was known since my photographs at Kenley in 1958. This was one of the cards that were stolen in the early seventies.

One’s mind can only boggle at the magnitude of such loss of history. The perpetrator later boasted of his trawl to a foreign correspondent even sending him a copy of the Movement card of what some consider to be the world’s most famous Spitfire. 😡

Although this was pre-photocopy times, thankfully both Graham Trant and myself, independently, had spent several days at the Air Historical Branch faithfully transcribing and deciphering the then known survivors.

A snippet from a sad but interesting sounding story that I knew nothing about.
Can you tell us more about the incident and do I presume that these documents are probably still in existance somewhere with a possible chance of discovery. Thirty years or so on, is the perpertrator still alive, is he known by name, or could he be dead and the stuff lurking in a loft somewhere, I’m intrigued, along with these references to ‘D-Day’.
It always arouses my curiosity when I hear little stories like this, I realise that you ‘proffessionals/boys who get their hands dirty in the cause of preservation’, and I’m not being at all critical or nasty about this, must have some interesting tales to tell, that us mere mortals are completely unaware of.

We may have to learn Arabic for our next National Anthem, now that could be good fun, difficult languages are always interesting to learn.

Agreed. You can’t beat the good old traditional country food, especially a nice pigeon pie.

Whats the best way to prepare mole then, I bet the feet are a bit chewy.

Another Merlin yesterday afternoon, I still thought it was reasonably quiet compared to other types.
I saw a feature on the local news last night in connection with the new stacking areas for Stansted. Aircraft do tend to stack just to the north of us, but this wasn’t shown on any map that they displayed.
Do I assume that because we are obviously on an MoD helicopter transit route that we are going to be free from endlessly circling 737’s.
This doesn’t seem to be the case at Ware in Herts, which I often visit in connection with our current project. Every time I go there I see a helicopter of some kind, last week it was a Chinook, but the Stansted traffic was continously flying over the top of it, must have looked good from up there, the seperation didn’t look that significant, though I’m sure it was.

There was a thread on surviving ASR craft a few months ago, an interesting subject which seemed to dissapear into oblivion.
Conversion into a houseboat/ chalet/ caravan/house doesn’t neccessarily mean complete destruction as the old buses have proved, it was an eye opener to watch that programme and see what can be done and what is still waiting to be found.
There is an RAF rescue launch, converted into a houseboat near Southend, which still contains it’s original diesels, I gather that a bit of mechanical sorting and it’s ready to go.
A few years ago a couple put up their house for sale in Wales, it’s core consisted of an almost intact Midland Railway carriage containing perfectly preserved carpets and seat material that even the National Railway Museum had no record of.
Lets not forget the Mk1 Blenheim nose, formerly a caravan, currently being fitted out on the aircraft at DX.
We may think that every thing to be discovered has already been so, but I doubt it, I’m sure that there are large sections of Horsas still in peoples gardens.
When I go off to my meetings in Dunmow, I pass a house virtually in the middle of Braintree. It is a very large neglected Edwardian house occupied by an old lady.The house and gardens are enormous, there is an old Morris Traveller abandoned outside the garage and a superb vintage caravan dumped at the side of the house. I’m sure that there are probably untold treasures to be found there, Horsas in the orchard, who would know, and how could anyone stoop to bother an old lady to find out.
Further out on the old road to Dunmow there’s a rusting old lorry in a wood, look at it carefully and you can see it’s an old WW2 Bedford, worthy of preservation before it’s too late.
These are just examples of artifacts actually visible in a busy area, I’m sure there must be untold treasures out of public view, their origin and history unknown.

Nice caravan if your’e a Hobbitt!!!
It’s a while since I’ve seen inside a Horsa at Middle Wallop, I’d forgotten how small they were, it must have been back breaking trying to climb inside one of those things with all your kit.
I’m sure a few of these airframes must survive, as Adrian says, people build houses round such things.
I was watching ‘Bygones’ on Anglia TV on Sunday, one of the subjects was a chap in Bedfordshire who restored old buses, and I mean old, early 20th century. Many of these were and still are, found in the core of houses and the same thing applies to old Victorian railway carriages that surface from time to time.
Presumably transport difficulties would mean that any Horsa conversions would be near assembly sites, does anyone have a list of these, I know that many Horsas were flown off in this area, does that mean I’ll have to go round scrutinising everyones back garden, I could get arrested.
On the subject of summerhouses etc, there’s a very old trolleybus in the back of a garden at Happisburgh, for those of you who know East Anglia, it ain’t very far from the edge of that cliff, which is vanishing rather too quickly.

Perhaps he will borrow P-51 ‘Jumpin Jaques’, I believe it’s the only genuine combat proven Tuskagee Mustang still flying.

How many films have been made featuring the original aircraft from the actual battles pictured, I can only think of our BBMF Mk2 Spitfire in ‘BoB’, and in some ways ‘Pink Lady’ in ‘Memphis Belle’, though maybe some of those B-25’s in ‘Catch 22’ had been down that road before, anyone wish to comment.

Thinking about it, if he’s considering filming in Italy, he may well be tempted to amass several European warbirds, B-17’s, B-25’s, P-51’s and the mouth watering thought of some of those Bf 109’s in Germany, maybe with the odd Flugwerke 190 thrown in.
C’mon George, you’ve got the money and your reputation will automatically draw the backing, get rid of the CGI and do it properly.