Farrish

No mention of the Italian biplane, but the erk in question, “Spanner” Farrish, did indeed fly to Anzio to get four unserviceable Spitfires back in action, and was courtmartialled afterwards.

Greggs (2 G’s) ‘Spanner’ Farrish was the engineering officer on No 72 Sqn. I had the honour to meet him at a squadron reunion in 1993. He is now sadly deceased. He was taught to fly in a captured Caproni biplane by F/Lt Tom Hughes in Italy whilst on 72 and was later posted to 93 Sqn. (Tom, incidentally, holds the record for being the only RAF fighter pilot to bale out of a Bf109, captured in Italy.) It was whilst he was with 93 that he flew the Spit into the airstrip at Anzio to make repairs to a couple of u/s Spits there. He was ,of course, court martialled for using his initiative (can’t have the chaps hazarding valuable RAF aircraft, don’tcha know!)

The book, ‘Algiers to Anzio’ by Greggs Farish and Mike McCaul (72 Sqn intelligence Cpl) tells the story well. It is available from Woodfield Publishing by mail order/internet order.

I am currently writing the history of 72 Sqn 1937-61 and would welcome any input from forumites. I am also membership sec for the 72 Sqn association, so if anyone would like to join us we have a ‘Friends of the Association’ branch for historians. photogs etc.

Hope this is of interest.

Yours aye

Tom Docherty

Caption

“I’m not sure this new bobsleigh design will do well, Bloggs! We’re going to have to push really hard to get it started!” :rolleyes:

In addition to my last. A friend windsurfs there and he tells me that even with the tide fully in you can stand on the bottom in most places and I have been there regularly for the last four years and there is no sign of anything at low tide. If anything was left you would see it at low tide.

Hi All,

The Warwicks in photos 22-24 are actually from 251 sqn coded AD and 279 Sqn coded RL. No 38 Sqn did not have Warwicks but used the code RL on its ASR Lancasters, which were mostly ex-279 Sqn machines. 279 Sqn operated Hudsons from 1941-44 then re-equipped with Warwicks, Sea Otters and Hurricanes. If you are interested you can get the full history in the book ‘Dinghy Drop’ due to be published by Pen & Sword in late 2006/early 2007. More details are available at http://www.rafhistorybooks.com

There is something not quite right about the size of the camel in relation to the palm trees and the other trees beyond the ‘wreck’. I think this is a clever spoof photo using a camel from the toy box and the remains of some botched model kit on a very realistic diorama base? (or I could be talking complete b=-!!”£$s as usual!) – over to you lot!

Hi Ian,

Here are a few more details. Copyright is EE Fresson 1963, first published 1967 by David Rendel Ltd. In the back of my copy it has a label indicating – ‘PSEUDO ISBN 7777032240’. It is an ex-library copy so this may only be an internal reference. I suspect ISBN numbers did not exist in 1967?

Yours

Tom

Hi Colin,
You say you scanned the slides. Did you use an ordinary flatbed scanner or some other tool. I have tried scanning slides in the past on my HP scanner with no success. What is the secret?

Yours aye

Tom

Anyone know where the airborne lifeboat went to?