Hi Ian,

It would be interesting to know where your info has come from regarding this aircraft being shot down in 1943. I’ve been leafing through a couple of books and Googled around, and as far as I can tell the Hendon example is thought to be the genuine R9125.

She entered service with 225sqn in September 1940, and was later sent as a Target Tug to the Central Gunnery School. She was then converted to Special Duties configuration and posted to 161sqn in 1944. That would mean that she couldn’t possibly have been shot down in ’43.

BB, her service with 161 is not recorded, so it’s not known what missions she may have undertaken. I don’t think it can be said with certainty that she only flew with SOE in a ‘training role’, though.

I’m pretty sure that JDK will be able to shed further light on this, it’s rumoured that he knows one or two things about Lysanders. 😉

The Great Escape aircraft was a Bucker Bestmann, not a Storch. I don’t know which particular example it was though.

The ex-Sandtoft Gannet is now at the Yorkshire Air Museum, and according to reports in Flypaper etc when the museum acquired her there’s a chance she could be brought back to ground running status.

There’s also Bristol Britannia XM496 at Kemble, kept in ground running condition by the Britannia Aircraft Preservation Trust.

Thanks for the link, very interesting to hear his views. There’s another video clip taken from the same interview, in which Johnson talks about his involvement in the real raid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXXbfEVoO7c&feature=related

Edited to add: The maker of the above clips has a number of other interesting clips on his profile page, including interviews with several Apollo astronauts and Great Escape vateran Jimmy James.

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=Flightglobal&p=r

There’s a certain Walrus fanatic from down-under on this forum, who I expect will be able to shed some light on the matter…;)

Awful news, my thoughts to the family and friends of those lost.

I’m sorry to be pedantic at such a time, but the date on the NTSB document is October 27th rather than November.

As XM692 has suggested, it was only the glider-towing heavies that had D-Day stripes applied. Allied strategic bombers were exempt from being painted with the stripes, whether they were day or night bombers.