Not as good as the WB-50s from Burtonwood which used to drop local kids’ Santa letters “over the North Pole” while on daily weather flights. I suspect it was only just the other side of the Arctic Circle but it was a nice touch!

I was a young lad when BWD was active. For Jon H, my most vivid memory was a B-47 Stratojet take-off. She rolled and rolled down that 10,000 ft runway, the noisiest aircraft I have ever heard. Much louder than a Concorde departure. I could feel the sound waves battering my chest! Also remember one of the engines of a C-124 Globemaster backfiring just before lift-off. The pilot put the nosewheel back on the runway braked hard and then taxied all the way back to the holding point. After a lengthy run-up it took off successfully.

Sounds apochryphal to me. Grumman didn’t sue over the Hillman Avenger!

By the way, Ian, no personal criticism. I’m sure you posted it in good faith. Realistically, people who follow this forum are very unlikely to interfere with the P-38. It’s not exactly easy to get at either!

No good trying to trace the pilot. Just discovered that 2/Lt Elliott was MIA on 5 Dec 1943, still with 49th FS/14th FG. Commemorated on memorial at Carthage, Tunisia.

I think the most intriguing part of this programme was the fact that AAIB came up with the original accident report when these were supposedly all destroyed in the 1970s. They were held at the so-called Hayes archive in Middlesex. Rumour had it that the existence of this archive was denied by officialdom in the 1980s and a researcher who enquired about it was threatened with legal action or worse! So then, do the reports still exist in the hands of today’s AAIB (Air Accident Investigation Branch)?

OK, I confess, I am the DJ Smith! I have long forgotten why P5090 was removed and who did it. Possibly it was because it was being reported as a new wreck by, among others, an F-101 Voodoo pilot. I went to the site in 1968 when it was visible from about two miles away on the mountainside. Apart from the front fuselage, it was more or less all there. The little wing root bomb doors still hinged up and down on their bungee cords! The wings were virtually intact, minus the fabric on the rear half, as was the rear turret. Definitely one of the best preserved high ground wrecks in Britain, except maybe the Hudson on Ben Lui and the Lightning on Plynlimon. I deliberately excluded the latter from HGW and it STILL got pillaged.

My wife’s father was 37 when he was posted missing in Lanc LL890 of No 15 Sqdn on 5-6/7/44. Air gunner Sgt Charles R Canday. I don’t think he was the oldest casualty, though.