I have just added a higher resolution photo of the crash axe to the photo-gallery, pictured below. It is marked ELWELL 1941 21F/1 with an Air Ministry crown and a triangular inspection mark.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=BCF75E8AD40ADF0D!164&authkey=!AJrxfdmdr6MXSdw&ithint=folder%2cjpg

I have added a few more of Laurent’s pictures to the photo-gallery, mostly giving different or enlarged views of items already included. There are several more of pieces found at location 40 (M6) – these are thought most likely to be engine-related, including the one shown below. The top piece has some distinctive features, as also does the piece just below the centre on the right.

Any ideas anyone?

If anyone recognises any of the currently unidentified pieces when browsing the photo-gallery, it would be much appreciated if you could please let me know by posting a comment on the thread. The captions can be seen when viewing the pictures in slideshow mode (click on one of the pictures to open). After a few photos of the early finds, the pictures are arranged by location number, which is roughly in chronological order of discovery. There are now 200 pictures of the wreckage found and it is remarkable how much has been identified thanks to members of the Forum.

The link to the photo-gallery is below:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=BCF75E8AD40ADF0D!164&authkey=!AJrxfdmdr6MXSdw&ithint=folder%2cjpg

Lucky_Larry,

Good luck with your researches – I hope the photo-gallery on this thread (link at the bottom of post #769) might help you.

The Lancaster Manual is available from Amazon (and no doubt elsewhere) – new copies look a bit expensive compared with what I remember paying for mine some time ago, but the used versions may well suit. It contains a reproduction of AP2062A. The Parts Catalogue extracts on this thread have mostly been provided by other forum members and are, I think, Avro listings. You may find the library at RAF Hendon of some help if you want to pursue this. If you want to post photos of what you have for possible identification, I suggest you start your own thread for forum members to help you.

Peter, since you kindly posted the two photos of what I think are supercharger rams, I have been trying to see exactly where they were located, thus far without success. Do you have anything which would help?

Many thanks, Peter. I was hoping the additional pictures might help in identification. I have altered the descriptions in the photo gallery.

I attach two new pictures of a number of parachute harness fittings which were shown to me at the time of our visit last month by a local resident whose grandfather retrieved these at the time the aircraft crashed. These may be from the harness of an unopened parachute removed from one of the fallen airmen thrown clear of the aircraft as we have an eye-witness report that parachute silk was used to make blouses.

I have seen a number of references to parachute harnesses including 15A/137, 15A/141 and 15A/191. It is only the latter which seems to show the square fitting pictured at the bottom right in the first picture, but there may be other versions.

At the top left in the first picture is a fitting from the parachute pack to which the clip on the harness, also pictured separately below, was attached. At the top centre is an oval buckle with a thin central spindle: at the top right is a similar but squarer buckle where the central spindle has snapped – the narrower ends have a flattened flange. At the left in the bottom row is a symmetrical buckle: in the centre is another buckle where the apertures are of different dimensions, the upper being larger, and on the right is a square fitting. I have added these pictures to the photo gallery, the link to which is below.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=BCF75E8AD40ADF0D!164&authkey=!AJrxfdmdr6MXSdw&ithint=folder%2cbmp

On the assumption that the fittings are all from the same harness, if anyone knows which type this would have been, I would be interested to hear. I assume that all the crew would have been allotted their own personal parachutes and that these would not have been drawn from the stores on the occasion of each sortie. Maybe someone can confirm?