There is a bit about it in the archived discussions from this forum, http://forum.keypublishing.com/archive/index.php?t-16013.html

I have also found the original discussion on rafcommands http://www.rafcommands.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=printer_format&om=3201&forum=DCForumID6.

Well, if not one of the above mentioned aircraft it wouldn’t be the first time the USAAF forgot to microfilm an accident report. I have come across it a few times.

As for other records, does anyone know what happened to ROC records? They would be useful for finding more about certain accidents.

As regards moving wreckage, I’m sure you have been visiting sites for a long time, I have been to over 330 so have seen all types of change as well, here is the best local example C-47 42-108982 Ashton Clough, Bleaklow, Both engines have moved a considerable distance down hill and one was completely buried by entirely natural processess (refered to earlier). Additionally other parts have moved down slope from where the aircraft crashed and have finally been moved out of Ashton Clough by water. The under carriage has also slowly moved down hill, on each visit it has moved a few feet. The best example I have seen in the British Isles was on the Isle of Man, any protectionist survey would have done the square root of b****r all. A land slide removed the site completely all trace has now gone, usually an excavation leaves behind lots of bits but this removed everything down to the bare rock.

Some of the worst people are just you average bobble hatted rambler, they can completely change the distribution of wreckage. Bits get picked up, wander off to another walker, ask stupid question, get answer, drop it on the ground.

Yes it easier to locate a site when wreckage remains and I am not saying we should clear them, I prefer to see high ground left as they are as well.

Snowdonia did not actively remove wrecks themselves (so you were sort of right), however they gave a grant to a local group, the Snowdonia Aircraft wreck society, to enable wrecks to be cleared (so there you would be wrong). I got that from a former member of that group who was with them at the time. Also is was not only Snowdonia NPA who wanted rid of wrecks, the Lake District NPA actively sought to have wrecks removed in the 60s and 70s. I have a copy of a letter requesting that certain wrecks be removed before walkers spread the remains all over the place (both were light aircraft so can’t be spread about that easily).

I ask the same question about recovered items, where has it all gone? Most recovered material did end up in museums but unfortunately the financial pressures most small museums end up with, see the problems that the Dumfries & Galloway museum are having at the moment, means they eventually fail and the collection is then broken up. Some will get passed on to other museums but a lot has been scrapped which is a real shame. I do not agree with the idea of returning items that have been away for over 20 years. In fact it would be impossible to procecute any one who then subsequently removed it, particularly in the case of items recovered for display post 1986 where all claim by the crown has been removed. Effectively an organisation doing that could end up being charged with littering and to get permission to return items would probably have to go through planning laws and environmental protection legislation and would be denied by both regimes.

Perhaps if the licencing system was more transparent then we would not have the problem of unlicenced excavations. The biggest problem is still the fact that the MoD have much more information that we do and often they will turn an application down without any real reasoning given and when they do it can be vague.

A good discussion always helps things, I dislike the selling of items on the likes of ebay as well, I always see bits from the local area, including a large part from an unlicenced dig that uncovered human remains in about 1990.

The ORBs are kept at the National Archives at Kew (they will be in a file starting AIR 29/), though MU ORBs are very brief and when I went through the ones that covered the north of England found little of any use. You could be lucky and find that the MU that covered Norfolk wrote lots about their work.

There may be a mention in the local flying units ORB if they sent out the airfield ambulance of crash crew, I have found that in a couple of ORBs where aircraft from other units which crashed within a couple of miles of an airfield were mentioned.

If you know the person’s name then you could try the London Gazette, comissions and promontions were listed in there. That would give you his service number.

Searching their archive can be a bit frustrating as a simple name search may not always find the person. Often they are recorded by initials then surname and sometimes the other way round.

The mid air break up occured in a dive, the rear section (about 15-20ft from the rear turret) broke off and landed close to the main site, the rest of the aircraft remained in one piece until impact when it excavated a large hole in the bog.

I have to say that your idea was a wholely unworkable one from its very conception.

Firstly anyone wishing to carry out this type of operation would have to apply for a licence for each and every site they wished to remove, this process is taking longer and longer each year. There are people who post on this forum who have been trying to get a licence for single sites and have been made to jump through that many hoops nearly a year has passed since the first application and the arguments are still going on. If someone was to put in several hundred applications (and that is the reality of the number of high ground sites) they would be laughed all the way from Innsworth back to that person.

Secondly from your posts you seem to be under the impression that sites will completely disappear if you or an organisation that you may or may not represent doesn’t disappear them first. This is simply not so, certainly parts from some of the better known sites do vanish (and eventually end up on flea bay) but the majority of sites do not get that many visitors. There are sites that I have visited where there have may been a handful of visitors in that year and there is a large amount of the aircraft remaining and comparing what I have found with photographs taken by earlier visitors shows very little overall change in the sites (in a time scale of years not months).

There is something that stops the local scrapman from just cleaning sites, it is called the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, ok I will be the first to admit that in relation to aircraft wrecks it is very rarely enforced but the act still exists and should be adhered to no matter how stupid some of its regulations may be. Also landowners consent is always required and this can be difficult to obtain in some cases.

Finally, the state of most wreckage means that it could only ever be used as a pattern for the production of new parts (there was a discussion earlier in the year about how much of a newly restored a/c is original by the time restoration is complete). Once a part has been striped down to become a pattern it may no longer be in a displayable state so once its usefulness is out lived then it goes for scrap. Is that really the best course of action. Also sites do often mark where people have lost their lives and some sites get numbers of visitors each year going there simply to pay their respects to those who have fallen. Does anyone see the complete removal of sites and the generation of profit from them as the best way of remembering the fallen?

Sorry if this offends anyone but I feel as though someone had to say it.

p.s. I am not personally against all recovery, I take part in excavations every year and have on going plans to carry out recoveries my self. However I have not taken plans to the scale of recover everything.