Fascinating Kev, well done and many thanks.

I have added your thoughts to a thread that covers this here.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,306538.0.html

Liverpool Annie kindly sent me this information but I still have not come across a decent picture.

Nos. 48 and 50 Squadrons were more fortunate. The entire complement of raiders reached the English coast by the early hours, tired but unscathed. By 0400 hrs the first of the forty-five aircraft were arriving over the English coast, only to find that the flat land of Norfolk and Lincolnshire was clothed in thick fog. Hampden AE116 of No. 50 Squadron was the first to force-land, slightly damaging the airframe as she slid to a halt in a field near Waddington. By 0650 hours the last Hampden was on the ground, not on her base at Scampton, but wrecked in a field at Stadtbroke in Suffolk. The crew was uninjured. The thick fog had taken its toll, forcing down twelve of the fifty-one aircraft that set off for Germany, their crews being disoriented and low on fuel. Fortunately, a total of only three crew were injured out of the forced landings, but No. 44 Squadron, after faring badly over the target zone, lost one more airplane when it crashed near Dorking, killing one of the crew.

http://www.geiger-roland.de/HistorischeForschung/regional_weltkrieg_luft%20shortly%20after%20midnight.pdf

These aircraft appeared at R.A.F. Bentwaters “Open Day” on May 26th 1973. They were one of the display teams that participated, the full list is posted below. I was a member of the 7th Army Parachute Team.

Darren if you mean do I own the pictures yes I do, but I’m sure that is not what you mean. I have no idea who took them, they were publicity pictures given away by the “Vintage Pair” display team. I have other examples from the “Macaws,” “Poachers, “Slivers,” “Blue Eagles,” “Red Arrows,” “Blue Angels,” and “Gemini.” All from the 1973 show season.