TruthspeakerMBV – You have rumbled me. I dislike academic historians and archaeologists as much as you clearly despise aviation archaeologists. Unfortunately in another area of historical interest I have a great deal to do with qualified archaeologists who frustrate the hell out of me for all sorts of reasons – and hence my poor opinion of same.
Glad you have enjoyed my books, though!
TruthspeakerAndy – As you know we have always had much common ground and previous to all of this Bader business enjoyed a long friendship. I will never agree that you should have published when you did, and nor will I ever agree with you that DB knew what had happened. But that apart I am thawing. Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing?
TruthspeakerHa! Absolutely right Andy, my old friend! We had helluva a game sorting through all the crap that looked to have come from a Celtic burial mound and which made our dig twice as long. Oh for just ramming in a hymac and towing out the engine, without all that ancient pottery – fortunately most of the ancient artefacts have since been disposed of via ebay, best place for em!
TruthspeakerSorry Snapper, completely disagree with you. Johnnie last saw that propeller when he led Phil Archer on that sweep – and that, to me, is quite a tangible link with the past.
Some of the comments on here make me wonder whether certain of those criticising aviation archaeologists have ever been on a recovery – for example someone suggested that wreckage should be left for future generations; do you have any idea how quickly this stuff is deterioating now? In a few years time it will look like a lump of buried washing powder. So I go with the school of thought that it is better to recover and preserve now, especially given that there are still some eyewitnesses alive and testimonies to record and publish therefore.
TruthspeakerDilip,
On that you may be quite correct – I just dont see it as justification to recover the aircraft. Of course, whatever others may say, you dont actually NEED to justify it – if it is something you WANT to do, and you are paying for it, then it is entirely your choice!
Regarding my questions, I am playing devils advocate a little – I would still be interested in a reply.
Bruce
But Bruce old chap, to get pix of Johnnie with bits of Archer’s Spitfire was not why we recovered it! We did so in the hope that it was Bader’s; had it been so we were working with the Douglas Bader Foundation to mount a travelling exhibition telling the story and exhibiting the wreckage as a means of keeping the Bader name in conscious memory and in so doing promote the charity. When the Spit transpired not to be Bader’s, that changed everything. As I have said previously, the wreckage remains with Professor Dupont, who, 10 years ago, embarked upon a process of conservation. Better that, surely, than turning to powder beneath the French sod?
TruthspeakerThe fact is that archaeology isn’t rocket science – whether you are looking at a ‘respectable’ bit of Egyptology or a bent Spitfire. I suspect, however, that the academic archaeologists like to maintain the facade that theirs is a black art, to which we mere mortals could not possibly aspire simply because we do not have VD & Scar, or whatever it is, after our names. Fact of the matter is that it isn’t rocket science, in fact, and anyone can do it – how long ago was it that TT was asking the public to dig holes in their garden for an archaeology fest or whatever it was? So that kind of random excavation is OK, but not aircraft recovery, a specific pursuit. Now then, who are the people who make shoes?
TruthspeakerDave Homewood is spot on in all respects. The pomposity of academic historians often leaves me feeling embarrassed for them! If all certain individuals want to do is put down aviation archaeologists could I suggest that they foxtrot oscar somewhere else? We have spent enough time arguing amongst ourselves without anyone else turning up and flaring tempers up again – just when Andy Saunders and Dilip Sarkar have started agreeing on something!!
TruthspeakerIf Bruce has to ask what historical significance there is of AVM JE Johnson posing with wreckage from a Spitfire he last saw intact whilst leading the Kenley Wing on a sortie in 1943, I fear, sir, that you have no soul!
TruthspeakerMr MacKay: The French landowners have recognised that there is £ to be made from the crashed aircraft on their land, so they encourage recoveries. They often make a charge for the recovery itself, and for the wreckage. On that basis, once £ has changed hands the wreckage belongs to those who recovered it. That is why some items are finding their way, quite legitimately, back into the UK. Returning to our 1996 Archer recovery, and as I have said before, Professor Dupont paid the landowner £1,000 for the wreckage we recovered, and, apart from the propeller blade etc that I brought back to the UK, the rest remains in the Pas-de-Calais. Interestingly, I was later able to photograph both Air Vice-Marshal Johnnie Johnson and Squadron Leader Dan Browne with the Archer items – Johnnie was actually leading the Kenley Wing, in which Archer flew, on the very sortie that he was lost. Moreover, we found a photo of that particular Spitfire in Johnnie’s album, in which all four propeller blades (one of which we found) can clearly be seen, along with the pilot’s head armour, which I also have. So, unless I had returned those items to the UK, there would be no photographic record of them with the greatest RAF fighter pilot of WW2 etc.
TruthspeakerAndy – Yes we are agreed. By the way, I didn’t even know that there was a previewing, which says a great deal, I think, about how Wildfire treated me – obviously they would have known that I would have hit the roof over various issues, so much better to keep me in the dark until the programme was broadcast. Did someone just say ‘bankers’?
TruthspeakerProblem is, Mr MacKay, that aviation archaeology concerns a past so recent as to have only attracted the interest of academic archaeologists in the even more recent past. Now you guys want to pontificate and preach, talking down to those of us who have been involved with this interest, without any funding other than our own pockets and whatever resources could be begged, stolen or borrowed, so please, don’t even go there!
English Heritage is, I understand, in the process of compiling a list of known UK crash sites, with a view to protecting them from development and other interference and this I personally much welcome. This should enormously move forward aviation archaeology as a serious discipline and regulate further still the activities of ‘treasure hunters’.
The real problem is that the PMA has no jurisdiction in France, the govt of which have yet to isue any regulations in respect of recovering crashed wartime aircraft. The situation over there, therefore, is much like the UK during the 1970s, bit of a free for all. That is the real problem, the French need to get their act together and impose regulations like we have in the UK.
TruthspeakerWhat astonishes me is that Bader’s Spitfire has yet to be found. Our 1996 exped attracted massive publicity all over the world and particularly in France. Had anyone in the Pas-de-Calais known the location they would have come forward then, I believe and as I said in ‘Bader’s Tangmere Spitfires’. Given the nature of the crash, i.e. the tail having been chopped off at a fair altitude, I believe that the Spitfire would have made quite an impact; it could not possibly have fluttered down to land relatively intact. So where is it?
One thing is being overlooked, I think.
Remember that Artur Debreu and Georges Goblet, the same eyewitnesses used by Andy, also took us to the Archer site, adamant that this was the crash site of the legless pilot’s Spitfire. It wasn’t. So why are we all putting so much store in Dubreu’s eye witness evidence as to where Bader landed by parachute? If, for whatever reason, he is wrong, that changes everything, as to date the area of search I had worked out for me by 22 SAS in 1996, and the area recently defined by Bernie Forward both rely upon Dubreu’s evidence being 100% accurate and providing, therefore, a datum point. That having been said, with the Schlager 109 having been positively identified, W3185 can’t be far away. But where?!
As I also said 10 years ago in ‘Bader’s Tangmere Spitfires’, ‘it is as if the mystery is determined to remain unsolved – forever!’.
TruthspeakerYou don’t need a licence to dig on the continent as the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 does not apply over there.
TruthspeakerWell shivver me ailerons! Dilip Sarkar and Andy Saunders agree on something!!!
TruthspeakerWow, hold on there! I haven’t said anything at all about the Bostock find!
The situation, though, is this. When I led my team out there in 1996, the circumstantial evidence we had very strongly suggested that we had found Bader’s Spitfire. On the surface we found a piece of metal with a ‘6S’ stamp, meaning that part was built at Southampton; Bader’s VA was built at Southampton, and was one of, I think from memory, only 124 of that marque built. Coupled with the fact that we were taken to the site by Artur Dubreu, who maintained that this was where the Spitfire crashed belonging to the legless pilot he had seen land by parachute. It looked good, but I knew full well that it was nonetheless a fishing trip: although the media blew everything up out of all proportion, due a leak in our ‘security’, and announced that we had found DB’s Spitfire in a field near St Omer BEFORE I had even visited the site myself! The Independant, however, did quote me accurately when I said that ‘it was a bit like going fishing: until you have been you don’t know what you are going to catch’, which rather sums up the whole exercise. All the circumstantial evidence in the world is no substitute for an identification plate, and that can only be found through excavation. So, we dug and found that the Spitfire was not Bader’s, but Sqn Ldr Phil Archer DFC’s, who was killed. Fortunately his remains were removed by the Germans at buried at Longuenesse, but the fact is that we could just have easily disturbed a missing airman – albeit in good faith, as it were. Due to the proliferation of aircraft down in France I personally see this as a real potential hazard – like digging in southern England during the 1970s – which doesn’t sit well with me; in fact I haven’t done a dig since. By the way – the 6S was a red herring – Archer’s Spitfire was built at Castle Bromwich; the item stamped 6S was part of the flap mechanism, which WAS built at Southampton! How unlucky can you get?!
Should Andy Saunders have recovered the Bostock Spitfire, even though its identity was pretty much known? I believe he was right to. As Andy says, and in view of my own experience, until the recovery has taken place you just cannot be sure. In this case it was known that Bostock survived the crash, so there was, to be fair, little or no possibility of disturbing human remains. I have no problems with the aviation archaeology side of the programme, which showed a group of very enthusiastic people doing what they love to do best.
Sign In
