Your hopes have been realised, Peter!! Laurent has found some more pieces near the edge of the forest, some of which may be engine-related.

73: these may be engine pieces – the item on the right looks like a piece of the supercharger;

74: various pieces: one is numbered RJ V23118 ML1 and another 604440;

75: this is a piece of what looks like heavy duty cable with a fuel pipe stopcock;

76: this may be a wing or tail-plane panel – the opposite side is painted black, so probably from the underside.

As always, all comments are welcome, in confirmation or otherwise!

Reconnaissance photos

As part of my continuing research on the V1 site, I recently obtained copies of all the reconnaissance photos taken over the Forêt du Croc during 1944 from the National Collection of Aerial Photography – 120 of them – which didn’t come cheaply! But, a fascinating look at the way intelligence was gathered.

Copyright restrictions mean that I cannot post these pictures, but what I can say is that the exact location of the launch ramp is visible alongside and at an angle to the access road, and that the crater from the bomb which destroyed the ramp (in which I stood two years ago) can also be seen.

There are disturbances in the trees and what is probably the remains of the aircraft’s fuselage can be seen at the point where it is known to have come to rest. Interestingly there is another clearing in the trees which seems to have been caused by an explosion at the point where the port wing is thought to have fallen.

A possibly significant matter is that five bombs which overshot the target and landed in the field, left craters next to the corner of the forest where Laurent has been digging hoping to find traces of the undercarriage and possibly of an engine. I will show Laurent the pictures when we meet next week and we can discuss them.

Without wishing to dash hopes, this must raise a question as to what created the crater (not visible in the photo) at the corner of the forest– another bomb from this stick (which fell from the attack on 6 July) or part of the aircraft? It is not difficult to visualise the villagers finding the main wheel from the undercarriage of ED908 a little distance away and concealing it in a bomb crater at the corner of the forest, or even for the wheel to have separated from its struts in an explosion, and coming to rest there. Laurent has yet to find any evidence of engine parts in the crater (except possibly our mysterious non-Merlin ‘carburettor’). We can only speculate!

He lives in Nova Scotia, so some way from you. I have directed his attention to this thread.

Incidentally, which aircraft was the picture of the access panel cover from?

Many thanks, Peter – much appreciated – I guessed it must be something like that having seen the picture I mentioned in my last (edited) post. Problem solved!

Here are items 67, 68, 70 and 72. I have already posted item 69 – it has been suggested that the enlarged item in 69 might be a fragment of a flying control rod. Other small pieces in 68 (not shown), and all those in item 71, are unrecognisable fragments of metal.

Item 67 looks like a piece of ‘top-hat‘ stiffener. Laurent has identified item 70 as part of the bottom end of the rudder trimming tab, and I think 68 is part of the lever-arm. I am not sure about item 72: at first sight it appears to be hinged (a close-up of the ‘joint’ from both sides is attached), but this does not look like a hinge attachment, although it is obviously damaged. Could it be another piece of the rudder trimming tab or tail fin?

We seem now to be accumulating evidence that one of the tail fins broke off after the mid-air explosion and fell to the ground separately from the fuselage – item 70 was found near item 38.

As far as I can tell the lever-arm of the rudder trimming tab was fitted on the outboard side of the port tail fin and on the inboard side of the starboard fin. In other words there is no means of telling whether the piece found was from the port or starboard fin as they would have been identical, rather than mirror images of each other. Is this right? If so, it is a pity, as I suspect the piece found is most likely to be from the port fin because flames were reported by one of the crews flying alongside to have been streaming back from the port engine to the tail-plane. It would also explain the pieces of molten metal.

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated, particularly if anyone can identify item 72.

Laurent has just sent me a few more pictures for some items found outside the boundaries of his plan – to its left – which suggests that these pieces might have been debris from the mid-air explosion. He confirms that, with all the rain earlier in the year, the undergrowth in the forest is exceptionally dense and it currently remains impractical to search to any great extent elsewhere in the interior of the forest until the winter.

There are some small lumps of molten metal and other unrecognisable fragments of aluminium amongst the recent finds, but there is something in photo 69 which is a little more distinctive and may be identifiable on the top right of the picture and with the reverse view shown enlarged on the right. This curved piece is about 6 cms across. Any ideas on this one, anyone?

The longer piece at the bottom looks very much like another piece of rounded stiffener similar to item 49.

There is nothing to report regarding activity over the last month. This is not a good time of year for searching for further items of wreckage – the foliage of the forest undergrowth is too dense for Laurent to be able to make much progress. It is beginning to look as if there may be nothing more to be found before our visit to France next month.

The 70th anniversary of the loss of ED908 is in one month’s time. I am told that the memorial to the crew has now been completed, but has not yet been placed in its final position. The plans for the commemoration are now almost complete. I will post some pictures in due course.

Peter, what seems to be emerging is that our piece may be of a ‘universal’ nature.

I have found a picture of a Type C leather flying helmet with a Type G oxygen mask dated 1944, which shows the microphone connector of the type we think we may have. So this may be one use for it, but perhaps there are others. It would be entirely plausible that a similar connector would be used on the various electrical circuits on the aircraft such as the one you illustrate from the bomb aimer’s panel, or maybe from the landing gear switch as you suggested earlier. If that was so, then our piece could have come from a number of different places. If we could establish its part number, we might be able to explore this possibility further.

Maybe all that we can establish with certainty is that we have a female electrical connector?