Are you interested in a particular sector or the sea or the whole of the Irish Sea?

There were a lot of aircraft recorded as having ditched or gone missing in the area though the Station Operations Record Book for Valley did not record any accidental shoot downs.

They often reported an unidentified aircraft which were intercepted by the resident Hurricane / Spitfire / Beaufighter (depending on which squadron was present) and reported as a friendly. These tended to be Whitleys and Wellingtons from OTUs.

The only confirmed case I have is this one from the No.312 Squadron Operations Record Book, at the time they were based at Speke.

October 13th 1940, “1800 A most regrettable incident has occurred, a Blenheim fighter being shot down into the sea in flames in mistake for an E/A. The pilots concerned were S/Ldr Ambrus, F/Lt Comerford and Sgt Stehlik. An unfortunate chain of circumstances led the three pilots to believe that two machines they had sighted while on patrol over Point of Aire were E/A. S/Ldr Ambrus opened fire on one of them and was followed by F/Lt Comerford who fired a short burst. Sgt Stehlik also fired a short burst at a distance of about 1100 yards, but states that he was sighting and testing his guns. The attacked machine fired two red lights, the recognition signal of the day, but too late, as at the same time it burst into flames and crashed into the sea. It is feared that its three occupants were all killed.”

Most deaths were recorded in England and Wales, notable exceptions being US service personnel, Free French and some other European volunteers (not Polish and Czech though).

All of the crew of the a/c I came across are on the GRO register but I have not got copies of their death certs.

I have not checked to see if some none recovered crews are on the GRO, I think there was a seperate register for them within the GRO.

If you don’t mind saying, what sort of threat is the site facing? Construction, burial or erosion / mining.

If it is due to commercial activities then I would suggest co-operation with developers etc, don’t wade in with the PMRA but make them aware of its implications.

Dare I mention a place in the south east where such a dig took place, without result? Maybe not.

Another possibility is that that crews listed on Runnymede are there because their original graves were ‘lost’ or they were buried at sea.

The later occured with a few in the Scottish islands when transfer back to the mainland was by RN warships and they were called away in transit to take on a U-Boat so the bodies were put over the side.

I know this happend with the Sunderland on St Kilda and Albacore on Hoy.

There is one site in Wales that I know for a fact all of the crew were recovered from, one is still recorded on Runnymede though. I got that from the ORB of the RAF station that dealt with the crash, they found the last man several days after “near the crash site” but still he stayed on the missing list.

There is an account of this in To Hell and Back,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hell-Back-Experiences-Bomber-Command/dp/1904010393/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242164790&sr=8-13, one crewman was murdered by farm workers and another came close to being murdered before German soliders intervened and fired on the civilians.

Does the Singapore AF still operate A-4s, I remember seeing a couple at Waddington about 7 or 8 years ago. Were they the ex-RNZAF aircraft?

The Form 78s are kept on microfilm by the RAF Museum, you could contact them via their website, under Research (Department of Research and Information Services).