JDKTwo crucial points – Firstly, critically relating to Kev 35’s question, it was an independent private individual that theorised, researched and found the graves – overcoming denial and blocking by official organisations at each stage.
Secondly the approach taken by the Australian authorities, forced to recognise a mass burial of their servicemen that they had had no hand in finding, was the only PR damage free route. Any other approach would have caused problems. I can’t comment on what ‘lead’ the MOD and British government took, but the MOD’s ability to know when to accept they have making massive fools of themselves remains remarkably poor, as evinced in the ongoing Chinook helicopter debacle.
Neither the UK or Australia are officially pro-active with the reburial (not even recovery) of servicemen from W.W.I or II in the way that the US is. It is therefore up to private researchers to be.
(On what basis, i.e. commercial or not, or if that’s a good thing is another issue. The US’ historically greater sensitivity to personnel losses rather than materiel is a critical factor in the drive to return bodies/remains to the US, IMHO. And to digress for a moment, I’d rather see than effort and money put to the returned service personnel, who are poorly served all to often in the UK, US and Australia, as is well documented.)
Australian authorities have been very responsive once kicked into action – such as by Englezos as above, and by Jim Bourke of ‘Operation Aussies Home’ in the case of the ‘Operation Magpie 91’ recovery of the remains of Herbert and Carver from Vietnam. While we should recognise the tremendous effort and achievements of the more official bodies once the job is presented – including the incredible work in the case of the Canberra A84-231 by the RAAF, RAAF Museum and many others (as in the Fromelles case) this only happened due to prior private drive.
Regards,
JDKThe Fromelles analogy is interesting. Having followed the story on various Great War sites the impression I have is that the recovery project was and is being driven by the relevant Australian authorities on the basis that most of the remains in the pits are Australian fallen.
I don’t really think so, that’s the impression the Australian government and PR would like you to have.
The research and discovery was undertaken by a passionate and determined private researcher Lambis Englezos. Essentially he presented a situation that – thanks to publicity – the Australian (and British) authorities had no choice but to act. And we were talking a mass grave – a lot of families of ‘the missing’ involved.
The Australian policy regarding recovery of the fallen seems closer to that of the USA than that of the UK.
In that Britain didn’t turn up to the Vietnam war and Australia did, the recent recoveries from Vietnam stand, however otherwise the bodies are not being brought ‘home’ from previous wars.
What is notably different is that young Australians travel to places like Fromelles and Gallipoli for anniversary services, as well as ‘closer’ places like Kokoda (roughly in travel terms as far from Sydney and Melbourne as London is from Gallipoli) to undertake various commemorative runs and the like.
Regards
JDKPerhaps the reason it is so far behind the likes of the Smithsoniam is funding.
Very different funding models, and the Smithsonian also faces strictures – some of which would close the RAFM. However the antipathy towards creative, in depth fund-raising by the RAF Museum’s management is more the issue than the (as you’ve said) inevitable shortfall in government funding.
(For instance note the withdrawal of BA support to the ‘BA Collection’ at Cosford prior to the global economic crisis, as against the continued Qantas support to the Australian War Memorial right through to now. Excuses and reasons will no doubt be offered – winners show results, not excuses and reasons.)
There are plenty of people on this forum who are quick to knock establishments like the RAF Museum yet I bet seldom offer their time up to volunteer to help.
I volunteer at my local air force museum, a day a week.
There’s not much argument, as per my last point, that the RAF Museum could use more volunteers better than they do – even Cosford shows more. However, that conservatism fits the pattern.
Regards,
JDKInteresting point. Generally personal research at a location remains the most efficient and coste effective method, despite the ‘wired world’. We are in a state of transition for access to archives, which our grandchildren will probably regard as a bizzare dark age.
It’s de Havilland Support Ltd. Lower case ‘d’.
Their job, as described by their name, is to provide type support for the de Havilland types that British Aerospace [or whichever brand they are this week] will no longer do. That, from my conversations with DH type operators, they do well.
It would be interesting to see what held the de Havilland Moth Club might be able to provide as well as a referral to DHS Ltd.
I’d expect for your fifty quid you’d get a useful answer.
The RAAF Museum’s Mosquito rebuild has drawings from all over the world, including many from the Smithsonian, unarguably one of the world’s great resources.
Most people who’ve not worked with archives don’t realise the massive requirements they have in terms of cataloguing, indexing, storage and expertise. It’s not ‘exciting’ or ‘sexy’ so it doesn’t get media coverage and tends to be at the end of the funding handouts, usually getting any (or no) dribbles of cash.
I will comment on the RAF Museum. The research staff in DoRiS are incredibly knowledgeable, and I’ve found them remarkably helpful and have no complaints with their work – quite the contrary. However the museum is, by any measure you choose to apply, the worst managed and run equivalent to any other first-world peer aviation museum in the world. The appalling mismanagement of one of Britain’s richest aviation picture archives with access to copies effectively having been denied for years at a time is a fundamental failing, IMHO, to their mandate of access.
The disjunction between the archive and the museum is well illustrated by the fact that they went from having a Sydney Camm display between the Belfasts in the 70s and 80s to being unable to find a photograph of him – one of Britain’s pre-eminent designers – for the interactive computer display in Milestones of Flight display in the 21st Century.
They have, however, done significant work on ‘Navigator’ for a trawl through their collection, but you’ll end up paying for anything you want and much of the data is lower than museum standards (IMHO) in depth.
Part of the issue is the American principle that any state-funded archive should be accessible at low (or no) cost to the people. That’s never been a British expectation, and sadly places like Australia and Canada have inherited the British model.
What is interesting is that few archives I’ve used have any meaningful interest in achieving standards that relate to peer performances (as opposed to internally set or national standards tied to funding). I suspect if you point out that another peer institution did this or that, they’d look at you wondering why you mention it. That’s the nature of exclusivity in knowledge brokers.
Regards,
JDKI have my father’s vols 1 – 10, but the ‘set’ was never completed as there were volumes past 10 intended to cover other bombing nationalities not contained in Vols 7-10.
JDKI’m curious as to why you are posting all these obscure civil aircraft destruction questions over the last few months?
JDKThere is a lot of knowledge on this forum and I enjoy it because of that fact but I’ve been caught out before on other forums by people that seem to be the font of all knowledge and are highly respected but turn out to be complete numpties whose reputations are based purely on the number of posts they have entered.
Each of us is able to differentiate between those whose opinions are worth listening to and based on experience or analysis, and those with a high post count and are content free. Sadly that differentiation requires the application of personal thought, and is a step too far for much of the population.
The internet and internet forums are a phenomenal resource if used sensibly.
I have had a reply from the sender who confirms that he has had the item carbon dated and verified as genuine.
Funniest thing I’ve seen here for ages.
The ‘carbon dating’ has been dealt with. The logical fallacy ‘a test has been applied, the object did not fail the test’ does not ‘prove’ it as ‘genuine’ it just shows (leaving aside the absurdity of the test in question) that it hasn’t been proven a fake by that test. Other tests could well show it is a fake.
Regards,
JDKDear Geoff,
You seem to be misunderstanding me – I wasn’t implying you didn’t realise the fallacy of the vendor’s statement, but clarifying it for the general reader.
Regards,
JDKSIS and the SOE used the S Phone, which was a voice communication between an aircraft to an agent on the ground. While it was used for agent comms rather than the suggested raid direction, it could have been used so, perhaps.
JDKSimple – it’s because this obscure subject interests me!
I just wondered if you were doing anything with the questions (or answers).
Regards,
JDKI’ve just been delving into various books, including James Kightly’s excellent Lysander book for a bit more detail on the cannon,
Thanks!
WOW thanks for that, they just strapped them on the thing must have shaken like crazy when they fired. Would have thought it caused stability problems must have made the nose dip.
Why would it? Newton’s third law applies; “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Equal being the critical part. The Lysander was a reasonably large single-engine aircraft, with significant mass, similar to that of most cannon-armed single seat fighters of the time. For some reason, as soon as cannon are mentioned in non-fighter types, people seem to assume that on firing it would drop it out of the sky, despite the fact that a projectile would have to be fired a lot faster or be a lot heavier than most guns were capable of at the time. Vibration from firing was a different issue, and did cause problems on types like the Tetse Mozzie and the cannon armed B-25 at servicing, but the myths of ‘stopping in mid air’ are just hyperbole.
There were all sorts of lash ups made to counter Operation Sealion. How about Tiger Moths with bomb racks. Anything to frighten the horses which the Germans proposed to carry across the channel on their river barges. It is a great pity they never attempted this mad scheme.
Just to be clear – it was a bit more than a ‘lash up’ and was devised before the risk of an invasion occurred.
Was it the RAF’s first cannon armed plane?
They probably had a SPAD or two in service in April 1918.
Certainly there were the COW armed fighters and flying boat in the 1930s.
By 1940 cannon were a reasonably widely used option in fighters and a few bombers if you consider the scene worldwide. Machine-gun only armament was still widespread, but certainly in the process of being supplanted.
Regards,
JDKFascinating stuff, many thanks.
Btw, there’s no ‘and’ in the Boulton Paul Defiant’s name. The originating (non-aircraft) parent company was indeed Boulton & Paul, but the aircraft company was ‘Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd.’, which has caused confusion over the years! (Says this editor of a Defiant book…)
JDKRegarding an enquiry into accidents. In the early 50s there was a very high accident rate among trainees, especially jet pilots and the Meteor gained a very bad reputation, “phantom diver” etc.
…
There was then a considerable drive to include safety training and awareness apparent in the early 50s.
That’s an important point, but I’d suggest that it’s crucial to distinguish between aircrew attitudes, training syllabus issues and expectations (including loss rates) and air force culture as a cause of accidents on the one hand – an unarguable issue in most air forces pre- 1950s at a guess, against, on the other hand, equipment (aircraft, engine, systems) failure in ‘normal’ use.
Regards,
JDKThe point im making here is that these aircraft were badly maintained
Can you substantiate that view? With data?
im wondering why these planes werent maintained properly
Again, have you evidence to support that view? More critically, can you demonstrate the use of aircraft unfit to fly?
its worth noting that any pilot who considered his alloted aircraft too dangerous to fly was usually charged with LMF(lack of moral fibre)and either court martialed or given a prison sentance, cleary a case of” get on with it or else “
Again, that’s an interesting point. I think you are muddling pilots who claimed later unreproducible technical problems getting their willingness to ‘press on’ investigated with possible LMF outcome, subject to other (or more) investigations, as against pilots reporting aircraft for subsequently proven faults, who wouldn’t have ‘psychological’ or legal problems with their service.
I have read numerous accounts of aircrew who survived these training units and were appalled by the state of the training aircrafts flight worthiness,
‘Numerous accounts’? Which, please?
ALL W.W.II aircrew training had a significant loss rate, which today might seem appalling (in a sense, of course, it was) but that neglects to allow for the equation that a significant loss rate was inevitable in wartime conditions. The allies were able to do better than the axis powers by the use of Canada and the US for basic and often further training, avoiding European (and Pacific) weather conditions and enemy intervention until later in training. However crews had to deal with European weather sooner or later in their training – the HCU and OTU system brought them into their battle and weather environment as late as reasonably possible enabling appropriate operational efficiency.
I’m no expert, but while there will have been aircraft accidents where mechanical issues were a factor, the majority of accounts I’m aware of delineate issues to do with wartime skill levels and enumerate other factors causing accidents – from complex machinery getting away from under-experienced crews and collision with high ground.
There is also a significant difference between weary aircraft not needing to lift the full fuel and war load used for training and aircraft with structural or engine failures being used in training.
While, As JBoyle’s said, data by cause may be difficult to pin down (although if anyone has that it’d be interesting to see) it’s certain that on a wartime risk analysis, a lot of crews would kill themselves (or be killed by other circumstances) before their aircraft ‘failed’. Operational Research, pioneered in Bomber Command ran numbers on factors such as these, and some pragmatic decisions were based on those comparative evaluations.
While the almost universal orthodoxy of the ground crews’ ‘infallibility’ must be incorrect to some degree (while not disputing in any way their intent to do a safe job) I can’t see even second line groundcrew signing-off aircraft that were not safe to undertake the job.
Operational Research managed to increase serviceability in Coastal Command by changing the servicing methodology in a trial, which illustrates that there was not an acceptance of unserviceable aircraft in use and that efforts to improve aircraft availability rates were explored and implemented.
was there any kind of enquiry after the war in respect of this, or was it a case of put up and shut up.
In short, I don’t (yet) see any evidence supporting the need for such an enquiry. However I’d be interested if others have such information.
Regards,
PS: While masses of punctuation may not be critical, and definitely leaving my editor’s hat to one side, can I please introduce you to the full stop? Looks like this= . Separates the sentences for easier comprehension. 😉
JDKThanks Tangmere.
Taking the BoB case, was the empty pockets rule in force then?
There was little danger of RAF fighters crashing on enemy held territory surely?
My understanding was that it applied, essentially during any exercises and wartime operations to the RAF throughout its history, and RFC / RNAS prior, but I’m interested in evidence either way!
Little chance, agreed, but RAF aircrew did fall into enemy hands during the battle, and I can’t see a general rule (presumably) in application from September 1939 to May 1940 – particularly to Continental based AASF crews being relaxed – perhaps not so much enforced then, though.
Regards,
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