Very, very nice indeed!

I love the atmosphere of the German airstrips in the hills – I remember staying in Witzenhausen and watching gliders apparently being towed straight at the hills, because there was a gap in them that was out of sight from my window.

I do like the aerodynamic aid on the pitot tube of the (Wilja?) cropduster – and what’s the flying barrel in the shot below?

Adrian

That, and Mark 12 has forgotten more about Spitfires than most of us will ever know!

Adrian

So this example of Russian simplicity… I take it you are referring to the main undercarriage wheel and springs behind?:diablo:

Adrian

Representing the American way and square leg? Surely not! Surely mutually exclusive?:diablo:

Adrian

Both death certificates say “Dead body found Ninth March 1941 Dartmoor Lydford R.D.” i.e. 10 weeks after the crash.

I’ve not made an exhaustive study, so please treat my remarks with an appropriate quantity of salt. As far as I am aware where a death certificate states x R.D., it is referring to the parish (civil or otherwise) where the death occurred. This was the case with the two wartime air crash ones that I’ve known of. Assuming that this is right, the crash was somewhere within Lydford PARISH. The question is how big is the parish? In an area like Dartmoor where population is pretty thin, I’d expect to find that parishes are very large – so that location may cover many square miles.

I’ve checked with A Vision of Britain Through Time, and in 1887 Lydford was 56,333 acres (in contrast, Finchingfield – the largest rural parish in Essex – had a similar population, 2000ish, in just 8,837 acres). My maths suggest that’s the equivalent of a square roughly ten miles by ten miles – or 100 square miles to search!

No wonder the location is vague…

Adrian

I don’t suppose Alain DeCadenet has forgotten Ray Hanna either…:D

Thanks for the memories, gents.

Adrian

PS How come via Great Sampford?

Shorthand for saying I live in Oxford, but am from/interested in Great Sampford!

Adrian