Tony

I think I have one somewhere – a bit bent. Give me a ring if interested.

I’m sorry to hear about John Finch-Davis. I have read about some of his exploits in old issues of Control Column. He visited quite a lot of Whitleys in the early days.

My sincerest condonences to his family and friends.

John, who passed on recently at his home in Bournemouth, was a pioneer high ground wreck hunter and certainly known to some on this forum. He was a good friend of mine for almost 40 years and we shared numerous expeditions into the hills. When I first met him, he was in the RAF, servicing Oakington Varsities. He later worked at Duxford and Wycombe Air Park. Much of his life was spent driving trucks on overland tours across Africa, as well as Europe and Asia to the Himalayas. John was an immensely resourceful character with a great sense of humour. It’s difficult to imagine him not being round any more.

I remember hearing that a group had recovered parts from a lake in Germany that crashed there during the war. Not sure what happened to them.

Mike – it’s the right diameter for the cooling system but those don’t look like spitfire numbers to me.

A pic would be good 😉

Hi Cees

We’ve recovered usable parts from the majority of those sites.

Cheers

Parts of this aircraft among which were elevator(s) etc. are used on Tony Agars Mosquito restoration.
The site also shows some very substantial Audax bits, would make a nice addition to Guy Blacks Hawker bi-plane stable. The Whitley remains are still there?, if not it would cost Elliott a few days off I think.:p

Cheers

Cees

Thanks Phillip

I’d be interested to see more on the attack on Driffield – very interesting stuff – especially the German accounts. Are there many pictures of the aftermarth of the attack?

Thanks for posting those pics Alan – that is an amazing coincidence with no. 4! I don’t think you could have got a better match if you had tried – so sad to think that the wing once sat there.

Scotavia has been doing some digging around and has made contact with the son of a former member of SWAIG (Scotland West Aviation Investigation Group) who remembers the parts being recovered by the RAF. Perhaps it was because of frequent reports of a crashed aircraft at that location…

Somebody out there somewhere must know… It was 27 years ago – not that long really.