I would think so, or happily proved wrong.

Cees

Albemarle survivors

Although you cannot call them survivors, there are at least some substantial remains of at least two Albemarles. These consist of two cockpit frames and part of wing leading edge and nacelle if I remember correctly. These were recovered from a quarry in Cumbria in the early eighties for a proposed rebuild for the RAF Museum, but after some years in storage at Henlow they were disposed of and acquired by the Pennine Museum (not sure by that name) after that they were passed on to someone else and are now (still I hope) under rebuild to reconstruct at least a cockpit section. Some months ago a throttle box of one was sold on e-bay.

This is another of those unsung aircraft types that just deserve more attention, after all the Albemarle towed a lot of gliders.

Cheers

Cees

But I have certainly read of cases over the years where the ‘authorities have tried to stop a ‘dig’ and then when it has gone ahead a pilot has been found.
British law does require that a body is reported to a coroner who then decides if further investigation into the death is required. It is also an offence to conceal a body, which perhaps is why some ‘authorities’ don’t wish a recovery to proceed?
————————————————————————-
mmitch,

In Holland there have been a few incidents where a dig was stopped because of the presence of human remains, but these cases were usually done by amateurs or souvenirhunters. Usually organisations as united in the nfla (see link in earlier thread) are very careful with crash investigations. From archives (and today using the Internet it is even easier) one can find out if a certain aircraft has still missing persons aboard. This is mostly applicable to land crashsites as most sites are documented.

Our own database covering the area where we are active (Noord-Holland and Texel) lists over 1500 idividual aircraft and that is excluding the IJsselmeer (so add another 500 or so). It is a different kind of fish with aircraft wrecks in Dutch coastal waters and lakes as these aircraft usually “dissapeared” at night and nobody knows where a certain aircraft came down. So everytime such a wreck is being investigated we must be very careful for possible bombs/ammunition and human remains. But in order to find out if a wreck could be “touchy” it has to be identified and that takes a lot of (again spare) time. But nobody else does it, and someone has to do this job anyway. The organisation I work for as a volunteer was founded in the late seventies and a lot of experience in the various fields is available.

Cheers

Cees

P.s. Flypast wrongly printed the name of our organisation as Dutch Aviation Recovery Group regarding the Heinkel 115, it is Aircraft Recovery Group 1940-1945 Foundation (a whole mouthful I know)

Oops before I forget

Some background information

One of N3654’s twisted propellerblades was made into a memorial at no cost by one of our volunteers who spent many hours doing this what he thought he had to do. Also on tuesday this memorial was unveiled in honour of Stirling N3654 and it’s crew. The Dutch authorities had nothing to do with it, just a personal gesture by someone who as a boy witnessed the aerial armadas flying over Holland. He thought that was his way to repay a debt after so many years. Everybody in our organisation highly respects him for his gesture, that is actually what should have been published in the UK-papers. the personal stories are the most powerful, not the official ones, those are just words without meaning……………….

Cheers

Cees

You rang?

Ok, where do I start…….

I quote:
I know the Dutch Air Force has a dedicated team of wreck recoverers full time. Do other Air Forces have that sort of thing too? And when did this trend to dig the wrecks and recover bodies start? Is this a recent thing?
Unquote.

Well, the Dutch AF have a team (at the moment not more then 3 men) of personell who normally are busy dismantling aircraft for transport (peace time or wartime). So it is something they were confronted with during the early sixties when the Flevopolders where drained and they found the wreck of a Dutch Meteor, when they thought they had finished the wrecks of dozens more (this time wartime) bombers, fighters etc. appeared when the waterlevel dropped more and more. And as there were so many wrecks encountered they just couldn’t stop for fear of UXB. This is also the period where they got their reputation (and deserved at that) from. The work is still ongoing, only yesterday a British 500 lbs bomb was exploded when the fuse broke and something sensible had to be done. Personally i started to get interested after reading a copy of FlyPast during 1982 and never looked back since. Boy, didn’t I know what to expect then.

Again I quote:
Two RNZAF men were buried this week in Britain alongside their fellow crew after being dug from their crashed Stirling by the Dutch team over the past year. They did a great job, allowing the fallen to have a proper burial.
Unquote

Well, it is true that this Stirling wreck was recovered by the Dutch AF but in co-operation with our organisation who provided manpower as well as technical information on the Stirling itself, but nowhere can be read that the project was initiated by a certain Dutch aviation archeologist group :rolleyes: who located the wrecksite, identified the wreck as well as establishing that there were human remains on board, contacting next of kin in the UK and New Zealand, started badgering the local authorities to have the wreck with missing crew recovered and properly buried. On the national news on tuesday none of us were interviewed or even to be seen on television (but that is not why we are doing it). Everyone thinks that the Dutch AF are full-time involved in actively researching crashsites and recovering missing crewmembers. Well the truth is different. I must say that over the last few years we have arrived at some sort of co-operation with the Air Force which has turned out to be very pleasant compared to a few years earlier. So things do change for the better.

OK, it goes on
– the difficulties you found, :

Name one and I probably have experienced it

or

-the challenges physically,:

Apart from the cold, wet to the bone from rain , marsh etc ( I think Merlin or Von Perthes know exactly what I mean) getting up very early while most “normal” people are still sleeping on saturday morning? . With the recovery of a Merlin from a Halifax that had fallen in a canal we were standing up to our waists in icy water (it was november) thinking (a hot bath, a hot bath etc.etc.). The recovery of Whitley N1521 was also very interesting standing waistdeep in water with fish jumping against you while feeling with your feet for wreckage.

or

-the beauracracy, :

Well pure murder as nobody wants you to recover the wrecks as it means more work for them. But they (civil servants) want to do their best to prevent you from succeeding. So everytime you have to slowly break down the bureaucratic wall brick by brick (in your spare time). And as soon as a project has successfully ended you can start all over again. 😡

or

-the rewards, :

The satisfaction you feel when next of kin can finally bury their loved ones. At that point you have forgotten all the frustration it took to make sure a wreck was recovered (and it is not the wreckage we are doing it for, it only serves as a monument to the Allies, or as a monument to a German familiy who have finally buried a son/brother/cousin after such a long and painful period of time).

or

-the reason for doing it:

See above as well as a total and unbeatable respect for those young men as well as the aircraft of that time.

If you want to know more (of course you do), feel free to ask

Cheers

Cees

682al

Are you interested in a Blackburn Botha throttle box?

If so, let me know

e-mail = [email]broere01@wanadoo.nl[/email]

Cheers

Cees

Does anyone remember an Ultravox video that featured Spitfires, it would have been the early 80’s
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Yes, what a great video Reap the wild Wind is, I look at it regularly being an Ultravox fan since Vienna hit the no. 1 position in Holland during 1981 (honest, you should check the glovecompartment of my car).

There is a lot of black and white footage in it as well showing Swordfish, Hurricanes, Spitfires taking off in formation etc. Midge Ure being a huge filmfan as well as his interest in black and white footage (remember Vienna)
this didn’t surprise me at all.

CrazyMainer gave the correct answer of course (and being American as well)
If I’m correct the video featured Spitfire Ia AR213.

Cheers

Cees