Ronald

For the UK try this website – http://www.content-delivery.co.uk/aviation/airfields/ – not saying it’s complete by any means but it’s a darned good place to start. Also http://www.controltowers.co.uk/ .

Peter,

Not disputing pbrand but RAF Flying Training and Support Units (Ray Sturtivant, John Hamlin and James J Halley) records 1301 Met Flight being formed from the Brigand flight of No 45 Squadron on 1 May 1949 when the squadron left Negombo for Malaya. According to the reference there were just four Brigands.

The same reference quotes 1301 Met Flight having a previous life, forming at Dehli in July 1943, moving to Nagpur in March 1944 before disbanding on 1 June 1946. During this time it was equipped first with Blenheims and later Hurricanes.

I suspect that between June 1946 and May 1949 (or at least part of the period) 45 Sqn acquired (was lumbered with) met reconnaissance duties (as happened elsewhere after WW2) as a secondary role, and that when it left Nagpur it was expedient to retain some Brigands.

It’s unclear what special (major) modifications would be required for met work – I would have thought the Gee-H and Loran would have been standard navigational aids used for wind finding. Otherwise instrumental observations required only the measurement of pressure (altimeter), temperature and humidity sensors – but these couldn’t have been any different from those fitted to 1409 Met Flight Mosquitoes during the war.

Unfortunately there is no 1301 Met Flight ORB covering this period.

Brian

Couple of things worry me about this story; firstly the ‘summary’ given at http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=21026. This gives the phase of the flight as being ‘Approach’ and the destination airfield as Boscombe down. Crewkerne seems to be a rather long distance from Boscombe for the aircraft to have been on an approach – unless the summary is in error and the aircraft was approaching Yeovilton which is much closer to Crewkerne.

The other point of interest is the very first post which describes the aircraft as circling for ‘some time in difficulty’. Again this doesn’t tie in with the above link given the proximity to Yeovilton. If the aircraft had been circling for some time, and presumably under control, one has to ask why the aircraft didn’t come down in open country.

A report of the accident in The Times on 2 October, starts with ” A French test pilot died after apparently steering his blazing Canberra bomber over the outskirts of Crewkerne, near Yeovil, Somerset, to avoid buildings.” This doesn’t fit with an eye-witness’s account in the very last paragraph in the report:

Mr Philip Burnham, who saw the crash, said he heard the sound of an engine splutter and choke, and then the aircraft broke from low cloud, swept along the top of the houses and fell straight into the ground.

Too many inconsistencies – does anyone have knowledge of the official accident report?

I can add a little more to the history of this aircraft when it was operating as S/162 of 162 Squadron, but bear with me.

1407 Meteorological Flight was formed at Reykjavik in Iceland during 1942, its task being to fly daily met reconnaissance sorties to a turning point some 700 miles southwest of the airfield. Unfortunately the unit experienced considerable problems with serviceability and from time to time the sorties were performed by other units based on Iceland.

The early part of 1944 was one such period when help had to be sought from other units, and on 17 April the crew of S/162 (pilot F/O T C Cooke) was tasked with the met sortie; included in the crew was a Meteorological Air Observer of 1407 Met Flight, Sgt E A Johnson.

It was on the outbound leg that S/162 came across U-342 at 60.23N 29.20W and straddled the submarine with three depth-charges; nine minutes later U-342, still on the surface, exploded. Photographs of the action can be seen at http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll.

At the time the Germans had three U-boats operating in mid-Atlantic on weather reporting duties, and U-342, which was on its first war patrol, had been ordered to assume these duties in the northernmost position. The submarine had only started reporting the previous day and made just three observations before it was sunk.

So far as I’ve been able to discover this is the only instance of an aircraft operating in a met reconnaissance role sinking a U-boat – by coincidence the U-boat was being employed in the same role.

There are other instances of aircraft from meteorological reconnaissance squadrons claiming to have sunk submarines, but none of the claims have been confirmed.