Sorry didn’t know yescue was spelt with Y! Is that like reading, ritting and rithmetic?

I stand corrected seafire mkIII has a Merlin 55 or 55m, it was the later ejectors that confused me!

I’m not a seafiire expert but I thought the mkiii was the first to be fitted with folding wings. The seafire III roughly equates to a spitfire mix so if by early you mean mki or mkii I don’t belive there was a wing mod.

Pat1968;- ‘I am not sure this post even deserves a response. You clearly have never served in the military and lost a colleague and friend. I can assure you if you had you wouldn’t suggest that showing concern for the family of a fallen serviceman is childish.’

Wrong on all counts. So much for ‘clearly’….:rolleyes: As for the last point, obviously, I made no such assertion.

what you suggested was that recovering the aircraft was more important than recovering the remains of the pilot. I don’t think i am being overly sentimental when i say that this shows no concern whatsoever for the pilot or his family. Is that clear enough? As for you having experienced the loss of comrade first hand i think you are full of it! If you had you would show a little more respect. Or maybe you think lying to his family is perfectly ok?

Whilst several people here seem to be trying to outdo each other in the righteous-indignation/moral-high-ground stakes, my basic point is that linking the Copping issue to the rescue of the a/c is simply childishly poor logic. And, yes, if the a/c’s in a container somewhere secure now, great, at least it’s protected.

The simple fact is that the best hope of being able to find and recover the remains of Dennis Copping lay with the evidence at the crash site. I personally made the RAFM and JCCC aware of this before the recovery took place. They chose to ignore this. Most of this evidence is now lost. This is not sentiment it is fact. For the record i am all in favour of the aircraft being recovered but not at any cost and certainly not at the expense of the family. How is that childish or poor logic?

Identifying remains is a wholly separate issue. Generally, the UK state/MOD has a pretty good record for dealing with it’s fallen service personnel and the upkeep of it’s cemeteries etc. If they seem to be dragging their feet, perhaps they have good reasons….. If the authorites have new information – one presumes they’ll tell the family first, rather than an open internet forum…

The recovery of the aircraft is not a separate issue as i have already pointed out above. when a vehicle crashes the evidence is gathered to fill in the blanks so that what happened can be determined as accurately as possible. This has not been done in this case. The UK government record on dealing with fallen servicemen is pathetic you must have really short memory as you obviously don’t remember many of the casualties from Iraq or Afghanistan, where families have to fight for their rights. They can’t even take care of the living casualties properly so how on earth you think they are taking care of dead ones is beyond me completely. Once again being so poorly informed makes me think you have never served in the military despite your insistence that you have, maybe you were REMF that might explain it. I have personal experience of the MOD dealing with the death of several of my friends and the way it was dealt with was absolutely appalling. Not an isolated incident, i know many personal friends who will tell you the same thing. I think it’s easy to be uninformed and presume as you obviously do. Maybe i am just being pompous and mawkish?

As for the assertions in parts of this thread that the passage of time is irrelevant – well, that’s obviously unrealistic. There is an inevitable loss of urgency after seventy-one years, frankly, it’s pointless pretending otherwise. It’s also illogical to suggest that recognising these realities by any party – infers in anyway any disrespect for the dead – or their descendants.

I did not say nor do i think that the passage of time is irrelevant. What is relevant is that some of the Colleagues of Flt Sgt Copping are still with us and they and his family are quite rightly concerned that this matter be dealt with so that he can, if at all possible, be given a decent burial. Do you think that the issue of giving a comrade a decent burial fades after 71 years? If you do get yourself down to your nearest British legion and ask a few veterans. I am sure they will set you straight on that. I hear today that the Arctic Convoy veterans are to be given a long overdue medal. Do you think that this is any less relevant now than it was 70 years ago? For you maybe for them definitely not.

I don’t think that pompous moralizing automatically equates with showing either dignity or respect, but then again, millions watch ‘reality TV’ these days, so maybe I’m just old-hat.

Why do you think raising the profile of this case is pompous? Once again what is required is not onerous, expensive or difficult. As for showing dignity and respect for Flt Sgt Copping i guess that depends on whether you feel the aircraft is more important than he and his family are.

I sincerely hope that the remains found are Copping, so that the lad can buried with some dignity. If they are not his remains what then…?

Now that all traces of the evidence of what happened have been obliterated i suspect not much more than dumb luck will help find him. That is the whole point. The whole recovery has been handled badly and this is the result.

Many thanks for the update qattara a little good news at least!

I do feel that we are in danger of attributing modern values to a historic incident – whatever the rights and wrongs of the MoD response.

Bruce

This is indeed a historic event but no more historic than any other modern casualty of war. In the context of family, friends and colleagues you could argue that as time passes those with a direct connection to the event are diminished. However there are both colleagues and family who remember the events and the man in question. How and why should the treatment of him and his family be treated differently from a modern casualty of war. You seem to believe that the passage of time either diminishes the emotional attachment that his family and colleagues feel for him and the events surrounding his death or reduces our collective responsibility for adequately dealing with the issue. I have to say that this neither my own personal experience or what i have observed in others.
I have to say that again this is why this has been allowed to happen. Our government will treat us how we allow them to. If we want something different we will have to make them behave differently. Statements like this will only perpetuate the disinterest shown in this and many other similar cases. I actually think there is a much wider context to this issue. Is this really the kind of behaviour we have come to expect in our modern society? If it is then it is a sad state of affairs. In the end as I have stated previously what is required is not expensive, not particularly onerous, it just requires modicum of effort and care. I fail to see why the historic context of this event should affect that.

Perhaps they asked nicely …….

I fail to see how anyone can be as disgusted as Tony when we dont actually know what was said! Lots of assumptions are being made, but if all Mr Manna did was said something along the lines of ‘We went to Egypt, dismantled the aeroplane and put it in a box; Here are some pretty pictures’, then no-one knows any more than we do.

The assumption that he has delivered chapter and verse in a speech is quite wrong unless we KNOW otherwise.

Bruce

Bruce let me be clear, the RAFM, the MOD, Tim Manna the DA at the British embassy in Cairo don’t owe me anything. No explanation nothing, the family however are certainly owed something. Lets start with the basics, common courtesy and respect for starters. Are you telling me that feeding misinformation to the family of the pilot shows any real consideration to them? Taking months to even offer an apology and an explanation of how on earth in this day and age of instant global communication this could conceivably happen and now placing an account of the recovery of the aircraft in the public domain without first informing the family of that account?

I have to tell you that i don’t think it really matters what has been said. It would not have taken a great deal of effort on the part of any of the above mentioned to contact the family and impart any relevant information gleaned during the recovery. However limited or inconclusive that information may be, they should have been the first people to be informed. Before any announcements are made or after dinner speeches made.

I believe TonyT is a former serviceman like myself and i fully understand why he is disgusted. You don’t seem to understand how upsetting this is for the family. The effort required to handle this situation with some tact and compassion is minimal. Can you imagine this situation arising as a result of a casualty in Afghanistan? If it did there would be a public outcry. For some reason despite the fact that we know who the family are, where they are and that they have stated quite clearly that they would like try to uncover what happened to their family member and do anything in their power to honour his memory, the same set of standards are clearly not being applied. I and a good many other people do not think this is acceptable in todays day and age. I do not believe that we should have a double standards with regards to fallen servicemen. This case and many others before (an no doubt sadly more in the future!) quite clearly illustrate that this is without question the case.

I restate that i firmly believe that the organisations and individuals involved in the recovery were firmly focused on the recovery of the P40 and believed and probably still do that the public would not be too critical if they did little or nothing with regards to the search and recovery of the remains of Dennis Copping. Sadly judging by the lack of a public outcry and the willingness of the media to report on the fact that nothing has been done in this regard, It would appear they are correct. It will not stop me and a good many others who feel the same being thoroughly disgusted that our government and it agents can behave in such a callous and disrespectful way. I will do anything within my power to bring this into the public domain and try to resolve the issue one way or another.

I will also point out that there would have been a good deal of evidence at the crash site as to what happened to Dennis Copping. Once again the family have received no information from anybody in this regard and whether you like it or not the advertising of the talk given by Tim Manna stated quite clearly that ‘the pilot had apparently died in the crash’. This is new information for the family. So is it accurate or more misinformation? It doesn’t matter because no one has taken the trouble to explain any of this to the family and that is frankly disgusting and should never have happened. Not for a casualty from the last month or the last seventy years. Why? Because there are still friends and colleagues who can remember the events and family members who care deeply about the welfare and dignity of their loved ones, both in life and death. That is what has been forgotten here. If we are to call ourselves a civilised society then we have show consideration for the members of that society and especially for the people who maintain our freedom and their family members. Both pay a heavy price for that freedom and the enduring pain that is borne by these individuals should not be underestimated. Nor should it be explained away by semantics or a lack of specific knowledge of what has or hasn’t been said. It is important and we should not accept this from people who represent us.

I have to say i find this whole saga extremely depressing. The number of people who seem to be defending the indefensible is truly depressing for me. If the RAFM, MOD, DA or anybody else want to defend themselves then let them do it. We have been promised on numerous occasions that statements will be forthcoming to no avail. I repeat, as other have before me, that this thread is about the search and hopefully eventual recovery of the remains of Dennis Copping. A 24 year old man who died, lost in the western desert, in the service of his country. It does not matter what the circumstances of his death may or may not be, frankly we will almost certainly never know the full facts. What should not be in doubt for anybody is that he was a very, very brave man indeed. Once again he and his loved ones deserve so much better.

All I can add is this….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pe0rNieL-Q

that can’t be me too much hair!;)