I should have read it too, as I have it here!

I haven’t found an identity, but Wikipedia “Lympne Airport” gives two other references, one to the Times:

On 4 June 1937,[107] a British Klemm Swallow made a pilot-less take-off from Lympne and flew for some 35 minutes before crashing into a tree.[108] Its resting place was 200 yd (180 m) from RAF Hawkinge.[107]

I don’t know if he is still active, but Google gives this address and number: Effretikon, Switzerland • Telephone: +41 79 282 7905 .

Maybe I should add a few comments about my involvement with a possible recovery of Flight Sgt Copping’s remains.

I have been away for a couple of weeks without access to this thread, and come to it today some ten pages later!

I do not need to go through all the details of what we attempted to do soon after the discovery of the P-40 wreck (by the Italians or by the Poles has never been clear to me). Suffice it to say that I was able to organise DNA and histological testing of the bones by the forensic department of my university, an offer that we have never been able to take up, as the bones were not recovered by the Italians, but left “in situ”, according to “qattara” himself. He did, as stated a couple of pages back, send me photographs of the bones confidentially, from which I am able to state categorically that they were human (I am an anatomist). I exchanged a lot a correspondence with the MoD, the Cairo Embassy, and their Defence Attachés, from which emerged the story of a second set of bones being discovered and tested in a Cairo forensic laboratory. Although I have contacts in Cairo university I was never able to get an answer from my forensic colleagues, but the story emerged that the bones were unsuitable for DNA extraction, which I doubt from my previous experience. One should not forget that DNA is not the only test that could be of use here: relatively simple histology and microscopic examination can give information about, for example, the age of a bone, to try to eliminate any bones from the wrong historical period (that are not uncommon in the desert, as I know from personal experience).The Italian team, via qattara, have also said that “the bones” disappeared from the site.
I have never understood how the Italian team found the bones. Having spent quite a bit of time in the deserts of the UAE and Oman I would agree that such a search (and such a find) are hard to imagine.
So, to my great regret we got no further with trying to find Dennis Copping, nor even examine the bones that might be his. His family had agreed to our examination of any remains, and it was sad to disappoint them. Indeed, our offer still stands, if ever we find the bones, which like the P-40, now seem lost again.

And from me Moggy. Happy memories of a visit to HMS Belfast (and other odds and ends). But how can I steer clear of French women?