Lanc35,

Many thanks for coming back to me. No, I am not sure they are D-Day markings, merely my assumption, which appears to have been mistaken. Your explanation is much appreciated.

……….

A quick online check confirms my misapprehension – stripes were not painted on the heavy bombers.

Correct, Peter. The arrangement we have is that when Laurent finds something, he sends me a photograph which I then try to identify. The only pieces I have seen personally were those on the trestle table which greeted us in France last year. Everything remains in France.

If it would be helpful to have a better idea of size, I could ask Laurent for some dimensions?

All items found are being plotted on a map. Although Laurent is content for this to be posted on the forum, I have been a little circumspect about revealing the exact location because the wreckage is scattered on privately owned land. However if it would be helpful to see this, please let me know. It is, of course, a constantly changing document as further pieces are found.

Wreckage: item 37

I attach two of the latest photos from France, with both pieces pictured from two angles.

37A is a piece of fuselage: the black painted aluminium is thin and attached to what would appear to be two stringers (?) which were presumably at one time parallel to each other before being distorted on impact. It probably could have come from any part of the aircraft – perhaps a wing or the tail-plane, but the edging at the bottom might give a clue to its possible position?

37B was found close by – could this tangle of metal be part of the pilot’s canopy framework? If so, maybe the piece of fuselage is from the nose area?

I look forward to receiving any thoughts or comments.

Thanks, Dave.

We seem to have veered a bit off course from the history of ED908, but this all adds to our knowledge about the use of Oboe Lancasters. There were obviously not many around, and those that were seem to have had short lives in that capacity.

Oboe Ground Stations

Lanc35,

Following up your comment about Oboe Ground Stations, at Rollez there were three formations on the sortie. ED908 was in the third and all would have been using different ground stations as the bombing of the three waves was within a few minutes of each other.

The research carried out with Dave Wallace (thanks again Dave) into the Foret du Croc sortie provides an excellent illustration of the way the Oboe Channels worked.

The first wave from 156 Sqn was led by F/L Kenneth Wolstenholme in a 105 Sqn Mosquito. Beachy Head was the releasing station (Channel 13) with Hawkshill Down the tracking station. Wolstenholme’s run was unsatisfactory, a “poor aircraft signal”, and this attack was aborted.

The second wave from 582 Sqn was led by S/L James Foulsham in ED908. Beachy Head was again the releasing station, operating on a different Channel (11), and Hawskhill Down the tracking station. This was reported as a “Satisfactory run”.

My understanding is that each station (or Channel) could only deal with one aircraft at a time, and this was clearly a significant restriction on the use of Oboe, and why it would have been more difficult to have separate Oboe equipped aircraft all trying to attack the same target at the same time. In Dave’s example in November 1944, it would, as I understand it, have been necessary to have four different tracking and releasing stations to control the four aircraft. Hence the concept of an Oboe-leader of a formation plus reserve who could, in theory, pick up the signal if contact with the leader was lost. In practice this seems to have been more difficult than expected, as at Rollez the reserve Mosquito bombed using Gee and at the Foret du Croc, the first wave was aborted.

The subsequent development of Gee-H overcame these problems.

The use of an Oboe-leader was, of course, only relevant to daylight raids when the crews could see the bombs dropping from the leader, acting as their signal to release. Night-time raids continued to rely on Target Indicator marking.

Dave,

Many thanks for your comments – I’m very glad that your father lived to tell the tale from his mishap at 26,000 feet!

I share your thoughts on the reasons for putting the Oboe equipment into Lancasters. I know you have a lot of information from the Archives at Kew, but I recently came across some memoranda discussing the use of Oboe in Lancasters (AIR 14/901) – you may already have this?

On 13 July 1944: … there is something to be said for Oboe fitted Lancasters … these should be used as leaders of small formations … a small formation bombing on their leader cover, or absorb, the average Oboe error which is in the neighbourhood of 200 yards and therefore stand a greater chance of hitting the target than several attacks by single Oboe fitted Lancs.

There was continued discussion as to whether an entire Squadron should be equipped, but by 27 July 1944 (a week after the loss of ED908) this thought had been rejected. The possibility of equipping a number of Lancasters in No.9 or No.617 Squadron remained under consideration. As far as I am aware this never happened, and the only Oboe Lancaster flights I have traced subsequently were those by 582 Sqn, manned again by a crew from 109 Sqn, and with the same disastrous result in the absence of cloud over Cologne at the end of the year.

ED908 Oboe-leader Missions

I have recently been in touch with Laurent who, unlike me, is not retired, and he has been occupied on other matters recently. He hopes to return to searching for more wreckage sometime soon.

Some while ago I made contact with Dave Wallace whose navigator father flew in 109 Sqn at the same time as my wife’s uncle. The team of Foxall/Wallace flew in tandem with Foulsham/Swarbrick to Thiverny on 19 July, the day before ED908 was lost.

Dave and I have spent some time recently researching the Oboe-leader missions of ED908 and, as this is of some historical significance, we thought it appropriate to post the results of our research on the forum.

The Bomber Command War Diaries say that on 11 July 1944 there were two separate raids on the flying-bomb site at Gapennes and that Lancasters made the first “heavy Oboe” attack of the war. The narrative goes on to say that a Lancaster of 582 Squadron had been fitted with Oboe equipment and that Wing Commander GF Grant of 109 Squadron flew in the Lancaster and led the bombing. This is all perfectly correct, but this mission was not in fact the first Oboe Lancaster sortie.

The raid described was the second of the two that day and the aircraft in which Grant flew was not ED908, but ND817, which seems to have been fitted with the Oboe equipment for just this one mission. 36 hours earlier, on 10 July, ND817 was bombing by Gee at Nucourt, and by 18 July it was back in normal operational service, presumably once more equipped with H2S.

After a period of service with 83 Sqn, ED908 was transferred to PFF, NTU, presumably at Upwood. It was from Upwood in the morning of 11 July, in the first attack on Gapennes, that it took off as Oboe-leader of a formation from 156 Sqn. By the following day, 12 July, it was the Oboe-leader of the 582 Sqn attack on the Rollez flying-bomb site. Apart from on the first occasion when it flew with 156 Sqn, it flew as part of 582 Sqn (as 60-Z).

In all cases it was crews from 109 Sqn that took control of the Lancaster for its bombing run. Their names are shown in brackets in the list below. The Oboe Ground Station reports have been located to confirm what took place, and the missions of ED908 can be summarised as follows:

11 July: Gapennes: (KJ Somerville/HA Scott) – satisfactory run
12 July: Rollez: (JC Thelwell/HA Scott) – equipment failure – bombed on leader
13 July: Gapennes: (CRG Grant/HC Boyd) – abortive – Group recall – not over enemy territory
14 July: St Philibert Ferme: (CRG Grant/HC Boyd) – abortive – device failure – bombs jettisoned
15 July: Nucourt: aircraft withdrawn – special equipment u/s
16 July: St Philibert Ferme: (JC Thelwell/HA Scott) – satisfactory run
19 July: Mont Candon: (PG Sooby/A O’Hara) – satisfactory run
20 July: Foret du Croc: (J Foulsham/J Swarbrick) – satisfactory run – failed to return

Interestingly the pilot of the Mosquito from 105 Sqn who was leading the abortive wave from 156 Sqn on the attack on the Foret du Croc on 20 July was Flt Lt Kenneth Wolstenholme.

After this, there seems to have been a pause for thought about the suitability of equipping Lancasters as Oboe-leaders on daylight raids.