I was a little hasty in dismissing the items found at location 113 as unidentifiable fragments presumably from the tail fin.

The Lancaster Manual describes the stringers along the fuselage as angle stringers and those in the main plane as top-hat. It illustrates them both. It does not describe the stringers in the wing tip or tail plane. 114B shows that the stringers in the wing tip are shaped in the same way as fuselage formers. Tucked away in an illustration for the tail plane construction is an enlarged detail showing the attachment of stringers. The detail shows a Z-shaped cross-section. The three types illustrated are shown in the picture below.

The pieces found at location 38, also from the tail fin, were mangled out of shape, but it is now apparent that some of these can be identified as tail fin stringers with fragments of the skin attached. Similarly, what I described as unidentifiable fragments at location 113 are in fact Z-shaped stringers from the tail fin. These are pictured below.

In 113A, the left-hand picture of a piece of the tail fin skin with a stringer attached is taken at an oblique angle with the stringer viewed from the side. In the centre the piece is pictured viewing the skin from above, and on the right the reverse side shows the riveted attachment of the stringer to the skin as seen from the inside of the fin.

In 113B, the oblique-angled left-hand view shows the ‘Z’ shape of two stringers. They both appear to have an intact 10-riveted reinforcing attachment. The centre picture viewed from the side shows the zig-zag pattern of the riveting along the length of the join. On the left-hand side of the two pieces in the right-hand picture can be seen the rivets originally attaching the skin of the fin. There are small traces of the skin under some of the rivets.

Can anyone please confirm whether the stringers, as designed, ran the length of the tail fin or if they were joined at some point, and therefore whether these reinforcements are likely to be for strengthening purposes or whether they may have been attached to a damaged part of the stringer?

The photo-gallery has been updated with extra pictures for locations 38 and 113.

Photo-gallery:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi…t=folder%2cjpg

Index to parts found and annotated illustrations:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi…t=folder%2cjpg

Many thanks Peter. I had also thought that our piece 114B might have come from the wing fuel tank area, and was perhaps one of the tank bearers above the inboard fuel tank, but after looking closely at a number of diagrams and illustrations, I have concluded that it does not look quite right.

So, I turned my attention to the outer wing and wing tip, parts of which were found close by. I think what we may have is one of the stringers in the wing tip (marked in red in the diagram pictured below). These are not of the ‘top-hat’ variety, as in the outer wing, but are shaped more like a fuselage former with angled edges along their length. Pictures of the restoration of FM212 (with grateful acknowledgements) confirm this. AP2062A&C shows that both mushroom head and countersunk rivets were used for attachment of the top and bottom skin of the wing tip, and this is apparent from a close inspection of the rivet holes in Laurent’s photos.

We appear, therefore, to have a wing tip stringer with a fragment of the aircraft skin attached.

Laurent has confirmed that our piece 114C is made of bakelite and is therefore almost certainly electrical in origin, presumably related to the landing lights or the navigation and formation-keeping lamps on the wing tip, perhaps associated with a junction box? If anyone recognises it, I should be grateful to hear.

Photo-gallery:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi…t=folder%2cjpg

Index to parts found and annotated illustrations:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi…t=folder%2cjpg

20 July is the 50th anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11 on the surface of the moon in 1969.

20 July is also the 75th anniversary of the loss of Lancaster ED908 and her crew in 1944. The scientific advances in the 25 years between the two dates are remarkable to contemplate.

There is, at present, no news of any more discoveries of wreckage in France over the last six months. It was back in June 2011 that Laurent first contacted me to say that he had found some pieces of wreckage from the aircraft on his land, and he has now been carrying out his searches in and around the forest for some 8 years, with each find adding a little more to our knowledge of the crash site. Given that the bulk of the remains of the aircraft were removed from the site in the 1950s, it is amazing how much has been revealed by the fragments left behind.

Laurent’s perseverance has been quite magnificent, no doubt driven by his first message to me in 2011; “The crash was 50 metres from my house. Since 2004 I have been looking for answers to my research. I managed to find the names of the crew of the Lancaster on the internet. It is important to me, to give life to the men who gave their lives for us, the French. I am 34 years old, while they were younger! I want to give them a new life so that they are not forgotten!”. The memorial, funded jointly by the relatives of the crew and the local community, which was unveiled five years ago in the churchyard at Freulleville where the crew were originally buried has ensured that they will be remembered.

My thanks, and those of the relatives of the crew, to Laurent, his friend Claude and others who have helped him for their efforts over the last 15 years, and also to Hervé who has chronicled the wartime history of the locality and to those who have shared their wartime recollections of the attack on the V1 site. Astoundingly, this topic has generated over 193,000 views to date – we are all extremely grateful to Peter and the members of this forum who have assisted in identifying so much of what Laurent has found.

Today is a day for reflection on the events of 75 years ago.

Photo-gallery:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi…t=folder%2cjpg

Index to parts found and annotated illustrations:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi…t=folder%2cjpg

Peter, are you referring to Laurent’s handwritten transcription of what he was able to read in the picture attached to post #1232? If so, the bottom line ‘SP??TOR’ can now be seen from Hennie’s almost identical plate to read fully as ‘INSPECTOR’.

The Lancaster Parts Lists I have seem to deal with the fuselage of the aircraft behind the engine fireproof bulkhead, and so do not include the cowling. The Merlin Parts Lists deal with the engine itself, not the cowling, although one did include pictures of the cowling panels and this is what is shown in the picture in post #1232. I assume you don’t have any further information about the individual part numbers?