There is a small Lancaster display at Newark that includes a Memorial Plaque to Gibson and Warwick. The following information is taken from the first edition of their Virtual Museum CD ROM.
“Memorial Plaque
The Newark Air Museum displays a Guy Gibson Memorial Plaque in its Number 1 Display Hangar.
After the Dams raid in 1943 Guy Gibson took place in a tour of America with Winston Churchill, before being posted to the Air Ministry in December 1943. A series of non-operational postings to East Kirkby and Coningsby left Gibson with a desire to return to operational sorties. “Bomber” Harris eventually agreed to let Gibson act as master bomber on a sortie in September 1944.
On the evening of September 19th 1944 Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, DSO & Bar took off in Mosquito Mk.B.20 KB267, AZ-E of 627 Squadron. For this operation he and his navigator Squadron Leader Warwick DFC were acting as master bombers for a raid by a main force of 220 Lancasters on railway and industrial centres at Rheydt and Munchen Gladbach in Germany. On their return flight to England their Mosquito crashed in flames near Steenbergen in North Brabant, Holland and both crew-members were killed.
The aircraft is believed to have exploded on impact and the owner of the land recovered a wallet from Gibson’s body and hid this from the German authorities. As a consequence the Germans could only identify Squadron Leader Warwick and they buried both sets of remains in a single grave at Steenbergen, which, was only marked with Warwick’s name. After the war The Imperial War Graves Commission identified the other body as that of Gibson, and the original single cross was replaced with two headstones on the one grave.
Mr Jan van den Driesschen junior, who was nine when the war started, has been looking after the wing commander’s grave near Rotterdam since he found it overgrown in the 1960s. The plaque was inscribed to mark the courage of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, commanding officer of the Dambusters who was killed when his Mosquito aircraft crashed.
The Plaque was formally unveiled at the Museum on Saturday 18th May 1996 by Mr Jan van den Driesschen the son of a Dutch wartime resistance fighter. He and former resistance fighters had originally presented it to the RAF Museum at Hendon. When Mr van den Driesschen was told the RAF Museum no longer wanted to display the plaque, he was considering taking it back to Holland to put near the grave.
Then by chance he visited Newark Air Museum in 1995 and saw the museum’s dis¬play of Lancaster artefacts and memorabilia and offered us the plaque. After the unveiling ceremony Mr van den Driesschen said: “I am very pleased that we have found a spot where we can keep the memory of this war hero alive.”
Guests at the unveiling included surviving members of 617 Squadron who were briefly stationed at RAF Winthorpe during the Second World War and Mr Van den Driesschen was their guest at their reunion dinner during the evening.
Squadron Leader Warwick was also an instructor with 1661 HCU at RAF Winthorpe, the current home of Newark Air Museum.”
Newark has just received a delivery of Airfix kits ….
http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/news.php
… but has anyone had any joy with the receivers over the Hunter yet?:confused:
Further former residents
Much of the collection was auctioned via Southerby’s in October 1988.
Fokker Dr.I replica – BAPC.133 and SE.5A replica – BAPC.167 were also on the Torbay books and went on loan to Newark Air Museum circa 1989/1990.
These are no longer there and I believe they left in the early 1990s destination south of England – possibly to Hawkinge.
Hi Mark, yes feel free to use the photo for your site. I wish Newark was closer too as it would be great to go along and meet all those people with a like minded interest. Unfortunately cockpits are pretty thin on the ground over here so there is unlikely to be an Australian CockpitFest.
Cheers Paul
Saw the following Cockpitfest 2007 item a couple of weeks ago, might be of interest.
http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/airshow07/443cockpits/cockpits.htm
Didn’t know the Welsh flew Migs:)
H.A.A.S.F me thinks!:D
“Hawarden Air Services Air Force”
Newark has made a bit of a start with:
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23ML “Flogger” 024003607 “07”
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27K “Flogger” 61912507006 “71”
http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/aircraftlist.htm
Although ‘on-loan’ from North Wales perhaps doesn’t really count!
Shame there wasn’t any full size Supermarine Seafire’s to be had:(
I understand the ‘full-size’ list could have been better than the kit list, but this is not the place!
I believe that RPSmith is correct with his assumption about the kits coming from the Neville Franklin Collection and also in his description about the early days of Newark Air Museum, BAPC and Control Column.
Out of interest I understand that many copies of Control Column recovered from the property in Newark have already been offered ‘free for collection’ via the BAPC.
I have helped list a few of the items recovered last year and I understand that many of the models were submitted by the manufacturers to Neville Franklin to be reviewed in Control Column. That having been said several of the boxes still carry the price ticket of a toy shop in Newark – P.J.Anderson; a shop where I spent many hours as a teenager back in the 1970s! From memory the shop owner used to fly an Auster – but I digress.
Please remember there are more details when you follow the link http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/news.php and then scroll down the page a bit.
re:201 Squadron MR 3 Shackletons St Mawgan 1960/63
anyone remember Wing Cdr Fred Houghton who was at St Mawgan from around 1958 to 1962 I think. I am his son, we have lived in Australia since 1963, my dad just passed away last week aged 89, have been looking through a lot of his air force stuff, I remember St Mawgan and the Shacks, if anyone knew him, or has any more info on that time period at St Mawgan and 210, 206 & 22 sqdn, I would be interested.
Alan Houghton
Alan you could also try the Shackleton Association
What does aircraft preservation mean to you?
I enjoy being able to watch people take a long-term view and I also admire people’s patience in delivering quality projects on shoestring budgets, whatever the time frame.
Has anyone seen the Gnat at Newark since it moved onto display yesterday after nearly seven years work?
Scroll down their news page on the link below for more details …….
http://www.newarkairmuseum.org/news.php
Or check out the QRA Hanger Project at Brunty; the Dave Collins Hornet project; Tony Dyer’s cockpits; etc, etc, etc
Are you Psychic TwinOtter23??? 😮
It’s only 16.15hrs at the moment :diablo:
Brian.
Doesn’t time fly when you are having a good time!!:o
XL149 was actually scrapped on-site at RAF Finningley in spring 1977, prior to the Silver Jubilee Review of the RAF at the same base.
Only the cockpit was saved when Newark’s volunteers also rescued Shackleton WR977 from the blow torch during the same period.
XL149 went to Aeroventure in Doncaster a couple of years ago after the Duxford Aviation Society donated Newark the cockpit of Beverley XB251.
Tonight’s BBC East Midlands Today broadcast @ 10.30pm gave out news of a further delay for 558’s first flight, citing non-engineering related problems – but gave no further details. I have been unable to find any weblinks on their [BBC] website to verify their report.
There were a couple tucked away in the static at Waddington Air Show on the Thales and BAe stands.
Also aren’t 39 Squadron due to come back on line shortly with Predators at Waddington sometime soon?
Perhaps they ought to bid for the PR.9s mentioned elsewhere on the forum!
Just seen some pictures of the new display at Newark, which looks interesting – see the link below.
http://www.military-airshows.co.uk/press06/newarkuavpraug07.htm