The burning of wood around this a/c to melt any aluminium needs to be looked at quite carefully. As the photographs (and Google Earth) show there’s not a decent tree for miles. And those there are (and any other burnable vegetation) are highly prized by the “locals” for cooking, not aluminium smelting!! At least that was the case in the mid-50’s when I was sometimes in the general area! The preferred method, by the local Scrap Metal Boys, was to extract the explosive from the millions of land-mines (still!) in the “bundoo” and to blow the carcasses of tanks, aircraft, etc, into manageable chunks. These were then transported away on huge (Italian origin) diesel lorries. This was, as one may imagine, a highly dangerous business! Only the lucky few survived – but the price of scrap must have been good enough for them to undertake such a venture. Any signs of burning might, possibly, have come from fuel ignited after impact.
Resmoroh

The safest places on a Para DZ are the centre Impact Points (IP) – the Alpha (for personnel), or the Juliet (for stores)! In 5 years recording (and subsequently researching) drops and drop winds I never knew anyone/anything actually hit the IP! Although some came bl***y close!
HTH
Resmoroh

Phillip,
You may have to try to find where the Air Ministry Works Department (AMWD) left all their Plans. Probably to the Ministry of Public Buildings & Works (MPBW)
Alternatively, if you can find places where identical buildings are still in use then the current Defence Estates should(!!!) have the Plans. Can’t help with the Barrack Block, or the AMQ, but RAF Benson has an Officer’s Mess suspiciously like yr foto.
Good luck!
Resmoroh

Bombing Weather

To answer Blue Robin’s questions:
Pigeons – almost never.
Radio – quite a lot. Decrypting German and Italian Met Reports and Forecasts was a significant part of the work at Bletchley. Indeed, it was decrypting these messages (in an Enigma code Bletchley could read) and comparing the same messages re-broadcast by the Germans in the U-Boat code which was one of the methods whereby the U-Boat code was finally ‘cracked’.
Spies – unlikely.
Resistance – possible, but their reports were irregular and the quality highly variable!

To over-simplify the process, forecasting consists of taking a snap-shot of the weather (the Actuals, Reports, etc). This is the Analysis. Then do the same thing 6, 12, or 24 hrs later. From these two charts it is possible to work out how fast, say, a Low is moving, and in which direction. Take that movement and/or development into the future time and you have a Forecast. The same system is in use today – but now done by computer. In WW2 it was all done on paper charts with pencil and rubber (LOTS of rubber!).
This was fine in forecasting for a bombing raid over Germany if the Low was moving from west to east. The weather that had occurred in the UK would, in X or Y hours, be over Germany. However, if the weather system was moving N/S, or S/N, in what the Met Men call a “data-sparse” area (German occupied Europe) then the forecasters had little idea of what had actually occurred, let alone forecast what it might do. This, as has been pointed out, sometimes resulted in serious errors (particularly in the route and bombing height winds), with consequent casualties. Forecasting in WW2 was – again, as has been said – an Art Form. Today it is more of a Science (but yet to reach 100% accuracy!!!!)
Routine daily Atlantic Met Recce flights were NEVER routed over enemy territory. Special Met Flights – in connection with a particular Operation – WERE routed over enemy territory.
What bombing cloud conditions were required varied (and I am not an expert). At the beginning of WW2 the RAF could not, at night, navigate to the target with any degree of accuracy (read the Butt Report!). Later in the war with radio aids (H2S, OBOE, etc) it would be possible to bomb, with some accuracy, through 8/8ths undercast.
It was (and is!) a big problem. Some of the WW2 RAF raid “errors” are still being researched today.
HTH
Resmoroh (ex-Met Office)

Thanks for all the comments. They are much as expected. However, someone, somewhere, and at some time, has to look through the other end of the telescope. What might be “good stuff” today might not be seen as “good stuff” in the future. “We”, having dug up a Roman Chariot, do not use that artefact for experimental tests. “We” build a replica, and do the tests with that. (And as an aside, “rock scratching” is just as hard a problem as restoring a Lightning QRA Shed, etc, etc).
I’m sorry if I have caused consternation amongst the Warbird fraternity, but the NOW is not important, the FUTURE is.
If any of you want to progress this argument further, then I would suggest that you send me PMs. There is clearly a difference of opinion as to which way this should go.
You have allowed me my shout – for which I thank you. T’is only fair that you should have your shout – unless, of course – you feel that whatever aeronautical archaeological remains (airworthy or not) should be hammered into the ground (and I use my words advisedly!) regardless of the interests of generations to come!
Je reste ma valise.
Yrs Aye
Resmoroh

Akrotiri & the U2

It’s just about 30 years since the U2 accident at Akrotiri. Be interesting to see what stuff (if any?) gets released by UK TNA under the 30-yr rule. Apart from some of our Met guys getting killed there have been many, and all sorts, of “stories”, “scuttlebutt”, and “I was there anecdotes”! Be fascinating to see if any of those tie up with might be released by TNA as a reasonable approximation to what ‘really happened’!
Here’s hoping
Resmoroh

Willis & Hollis quote RAF Bramcote (with satellites at Nuneaton and Bitteswell) as being the home(s) of:-
105 (Transport) OTU – Wellingtons
1513 BAT Flight – Oxfords
5132 Bomb Disposal Sqn
6211 Bomb Disposal Flight
all as at Dec 1944
HTH
Resmoroh