pat1968the airman Giovanni Romanini walked for over 90 km into the desert to seek help.
(after 20 years the body was intact, untouched by anyone!)
if he is untouched by anyone that includes Bedouin
Tradition is that the Bedouins do not touch the corpses unknown
I think both Laurence and i were referring to this comment. No offense meant just debating the possibilities!
pat1968This is also my understanding. Bedouin have a reputation for being very diligent in this regard, for both religeous and humanitarian reasons. You are assuming that the bodies of the crew of the lady be good and the Italian aircraft were found by Bedouin and left. I don’t think there is any evidence to support this? The search for the crew of the lady be good would have taken in any local knowledge available at the time. Had the Bedouin been aware of the remains they would have been found very quickly.
They don’t just show respect to the dead either my great uncle fought in north africa and was saved from certain death by the Bedouin after collapsing with dehydration and exposure. He couldn’t say enough In praise of them.
pat1968sorry, i must be having a senior moment! It’s been a long day. Certainly posses more questions than it answers. Maybe someone from the recovery team would like to comment?
pat1968indeed welcome back qattara! 🙂 This is a very interesting development, i believe Andy is going to post some comments on this so i will let him do that and discuss the implications afterwards.
pat1968Quite shameful.
Might as well be 400 year ago the way many thing of how “distant” WW2 is
I think for me the logic is fairly simple. This is within living memory. There are members of the Copping family who are still alive, who met him and remember him. Also a number of his squadron mates are still alive and remember him and the incident. I don’t think i would be remiss by saying that they would all very much like to see his remains recovered and given a decent burial. Servicemen are all very much aware that ‘it could have been you!’ It also serves as timely reminder that many of us still feel, very much that we owe them a great deal for the sacrifices that were made on our behalf. Don’t forget that the survivors paid a heavy price too. As Plato said “only the dead see the end of the war.”
pat1968Will we actually ever know the true story of the aircraft ? The details are going to be a degree of guesswork as to why the aircraft ended up where it is and the sad fate of the pilot unless there is any kind of documentation found written by him at the time.
I think this is a very good point. It very much depends on the work carried out prior and during the recovery. Unfortunately some well meaning individuals moved some of the components nearer to the main body of the aircraft in an effort to keep them together. I know that quattara and his team took GPS co-ordinates of the crash site prior to the recovery. What other information has been gathered remains to be seen. But as you say much will be guesswork and conjecture. One thing that interested me was to know if the compass was indicating correctly, if it was indicating incorrectly it may explain the error in course. It may have been a simple error compounded by the damage to the aircraft. Fatigue and combat stress there was an awful lot going on at the time. Hopefully some of those questions will be answered in due course. I suspect we will never have a full picture of exactly what happened.
pat1968I wonder if too much importance is being placed on all of this business? I am sure that the crew of the ‘Lady Be Good’ B-24 managed to walk amazing distances through the desert. Of course we will never know how long the poor guy stayed by his plane but maybe bones found so close to the crash-landing are just too convenient?
If you found a crashed vehicle today and there were what looked like victims of that crash nearby, surely you would not dismiss them on the basis that their location was too convenient! Surely the most probably explanation is the one that you would investigate first? There are certainly no guarantees that the remains are those of Dennis Copping but the location is known and the effort required to determine if they are is minimal?
pat1968Democracy in Action
For those of you who may be thinking that you agree with the sentiments expressed here but that it won’t do any good. We have received some heartening news from Qattara and his team. The MOD have finally contacted them regarding the bones and are apparently in discussions about a possible joint expedition to the site. Whilst we don’t know the specifics and there are a great many hurdles to overcome it is at least a start. So democracy apparently works! Thank you to all of those who have taken the trouble to post on the forum and contacted their MP’s. DO NOT STOP NOW! We must continue to apply what little pressure we can exert even if it just means we are shaming the MOD into action. Redouble any efforts that you might be making, sadly this is not an isolated incident. Rather one that has had the spotlight shone on it.
I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to Qattara and his team, (especially given the reception he received in some quarters) whilst these remains may turn out not to be those of Dennis Copping, had it not been for the discovery we would not be in a position that we are now and Dennis would have been quietly forgotten.
pat1968for anyone who wants to write to or email their MP go to the link below and enter your postcode it really couldn’t be easier!
pat1968thanks for posting that TonyT i hadn’t seen it. It is heartening to see tath people are as outraged as us!
pat1968what truly moving tribute. I am very sorry for your loss. You obviously have great memories of him.
pat1968Right! Well the press have fudged it but this is still a democracy (thanks in no small part to the sacrifice made by Dennis Copping and so many others) so that means we have the power and not them! So if you want to make your voices heard in the first instance you need do no more than put a quick post on this thread saying that you think something should be done. The press have been reading this forum so give them something to read. If you want to write to your MP’s then i can’t see that it can do any harm. With remembrance day just around the corner it’s a good time for everyone to spend a few minutes doing something that actually might make a difference to a family that have paid a heavy price for all of us. We are not asking for much, give it some thought.
Pat
pat1968All is far from lost with respect to the remains discovered by qattara and his team. I have no doubt that the MOD will do nothing so it will be up to us “amateurs” as i believe we have been described. If being a professional means you behave in the way the MOD et al have then i am very proud to be an amateur!
pat1968on going-
I posted this on a separate thread because this is not really about the anniversary of Dennis Coppings’ death but the appalling way in which he and and his family are being treated by the MOD.
pat1968Egyptian P40 scandal article
I think his story plumbs new depths even for the incompetent MOD. Frankly the article is a fudge the MOD, JCCC and the Defense attache have been let off the hook.
The MOD have acknowledged the fact that they wrongly informed the family that the remains discovered were ‘categorically’ not those of Dennis Copping. The MOD press officer stated that DNA testing had been carried out and determined that the bones were 400 years old. Not only is this impossible (DNA testing cannot be used to determine age) it is completely untrue. This is what the family were told and this is also the information that was released to the press. This has been confirmed to me both by the family and a reporter independently. When questioned the MOD press officer referred to the Joint casualty and compassionate center JCCC. they in turn stated that their information had come from the defense attache in Cairo namely Capt Collins. When Capt Collins was eventually contacted by a reporter. He allegedly stated that he dismissed the claims of the Italians as the information was not credible. He was allegedly told by an unnamed Egyptian that they find remains in the desert all the time they are probably 400 years old hence the age. This apparently filtered back to the MOD press office presumably by via JCCC who we must assume have accepted the veracity of the information without any further inquiry. This was then relayed to the family. All of this despite the fact that the defense attache visited the crash site and apparently took part in the recovery of the aircraft. It seems that the limited resources available didn’t stretch to the five or so extra miles required to recover the remains!
No attempt has been made to make any inquiries whatsoever by the MOD. When the MOD finally becane aware of what they have apparently decribed as a “terrible mistake” they indicated that would apologise to the family as soon as possible. That was nearly a month ago and the family have still not been contacted. I guess JCCC were too busy to contact them?
The discovery by the Polish Oil workers looks very much to be suspect. The aircraft was in fact discovered as posted on the now suspended P40 thread by the Italian ARIDO team in February. They then informed the Egyptian authorities who asked them to keep quiet about it to preserve the aircraft from souvenir hunters. Unfortunately the information leaked out and it seems the polish team saw an opportunity. They took the pictures that were used around the world i am betting not for free! All of this despite the fact that oil exploration teams find the remains of servicemen regularly in the desert and whilst it is not a hard and fast rule. There is certainly a code of ethics amongst the oil industry that these finds are not publicized. To prevent precisely what happened in this case i.e. the family finding out from the press and not from the MOD after proper and thorough investigation.
It is one thing to have a policy that does not include the recovery of the remains of fallen servicemen it is entirely another to disseminate false information to the family and wider public. This is an absolute disgrace and the only allegiance shown by the press is to the MOD and not the family of the fallen pilot. How would you feel in their place? it is utterly appalling. All of this on the anniversary of the second battle of Alamein and only a few weeks short of remembrance Sunday. I cannot be the only person that thinks that spending the meager sum of money required to recover and test a sample from the desert seems like a very small price to pay for the sacrifice made by Dennis Copping and his family?
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