Just for the data plate nuts, here’s the drawing I was sent in 1992 of the data plate for the Whitstable Dornier. I know nossink on this front, but the collection of relics at the Spitfire Memorial at Manston had a similar plate with a very close number identified as the Werke Nr plate from another Do17. The plate itself I last saw about 1993 in the Sherwood Armoury museum at Whitstable – though Google suggests that the museum is no more.

Adrian

You are in luck, Nick – I’ve still got the scans. PM me your email address and I’ll send them over. I’ll also attempt to drop that nice Mr Saunders a PM (popular chap – his inbox is always full) a line, see what he makes…

Somewhere I’ve a drawing of what purported to be the actual Werk Nummer plate – I’ll see if it surfaces. I have to say that it’s a well dug site – apparently an engine was recovered in the ’50s, Hawkinge were there in the ’70s, Tonbridge in 1990… and after all that, the RN blow a few bombs up in 1991-2!

Adrian

Gerat (A with an umlaut – best approximation of the sound is to treat as if spelt geraet) is machine or device, so we’re looking at a plate from some kind of piece of equipment, with that piece of kit’s Werk nummer.

In the event of me being wrong about HM, I’d like to know too! I’ve spent some time investigating in a very amateurish way a machine from his unit shot down on the same raid. Twas Nils that told me – no doubt Andy will be able to confirm/refute.

Adrian

Well, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it isn’t Oxford. What I can’t do is come up with a better suggestion!

Assuming it’s the UK, and something makes me a bit wary of that, but I can’t really define why, it looks like parliamentary enclosure-era field patterns, with perhaps some older fields to the far side of the town, and it looks pretty low relief to me. The field patterns suggest midlands, while the apparent flatness suggests that it might be Cambs – Lincs – Hunts (as it would have been in 1968). There’s not a great deal of woodland, which suggests somewhere fairly arable.

To the LH edge of the photo there’s some kind of factory(?) in the distance that might give a good clue. There’s also a large road – bypass, perhaps even a motorway, being built to this side of the town that might be a clue, especially as it looks as though there’s a motorway, or at least a dual cabbageway, between the town and the factory. There’s also something that looks a bit like the end of a runway to the right, but there’s not enough to really see.

Does that help anyone else? Or am I barking up utterly the wrong tree?

Adrian

There was a section of Horsa recovered from Cholsey in, I think, the late 1990s that had been used as part of a house. Covered in Flypast/Aeroplane Monthly at the time. I have to say that I haven’t heard of one since but, if you look on Youtube for Horsa, you should find a video of Horsas becoming houses.

Adrian

Hope I’m not indulging in too much necromancy here! Whilst guddling around looking for something utterly different, what should I turn up but…

Dunno if anyone can ID it from those, as they’re all I have, but that’s the prop outside the Sportsman.

As a total aside, if you find the photo of the Seasalter Dornier taken from the Sheppey side, you can make out the roof of the Sportsman in the distance. Now if I knew how to track down the film clip of it used in “Spitfire Ace”…

Adrian

That’s a cracking relic!

I think the 26th August raid on Debden is covered in G H Rayner’s book “One Hurricane, One Raid” – though you might want to find a copy in a library first as Debden was attacked twice, three days apart, and as the book’s title suggests it is concerned with a single day.

I have a slight personal interest as two of the crew of one of the Dorniers shot down close to the airfield were captured by a distant cousin (now dead) at Great Sampford. There’s a whacking great lump of wing in the museum at Hawkinge, but don’t expect to be able to take a photo… Two parachutists also landed at Finchingfield that day, where one apparently had the somewhat ironic misfortune of breaking his leg colliding with the war memorial.

Adrian

Lovely! My first flight was from Headcorn, and I saw Kent under thick snow at least a couple of times. Bought the memories back!

Adrian