Many thanks 🙂

I have many bits and pieces from various crash sites, old airfields etc. But the one piece I treasure is one half of a control wheel from the crash site of Captain Khouri’s B-17 (42-97746) that crashed in Anstey moat after take off from Nuthampstead on 15th Oct 1944.

Why this part?, well Captain Charles Khouri was billeted with my Grandmother during part of his stay at Nuthampstead with the 398th BG(H). My Mother, then a young girl aged 14, witnessed the crash that morning and would tell my brother and I about the incident when we were small.The part was unearthed while archeologists were excavating the old moat back in 1980. Imagine her surprise when I gave her the piece cleaned and mounted on a wooden stand, she kept it up until her death a few years ago, when it returned back to me.

I later met the crew chief for this aircraft at one of Nuthampsteads reunions a few years ago, he remembered my mothers family as they used to take in laundry from the airfield as an income supplement, he could name my grandmother and her three daughters !.

If you get up near Heiligengeistfeld, you can see the last Flak tower in Hamburg, monstrous great lump of a building!.

RAF Pershore to others! :p

For some reason I just cannot get the size down, I keep resizing the images but some still come out at 500 plus bytes 🙁
Ok hosted on photobucket.
W/C Branse Burbridge 85 Squadron, top scoring nightfighter pilot in the RAF.

S/L Tom Bennett, last surviving Mosquito Navigator with 617 Squadron.

Tears for some, a very emotional day.

W/Commander Walsh lays his wreath.

Air Commodore RF Garwood, Col Dan Edgar RCAF,and W/Commander Ernie Walsh RAAF.

Col Edgar Salutes after wreath laying.

The Lancaster overhead, apologies for quality.

It was a brilliant day 🙂
Thanks to Maurice Hammond for opening the Dedication Day with a wonderful display of ‘Janie’ .We had kept quiet about this part as a surprise for the public.
A big thank you to the BBMF for the appearance of PA474 in four terrific passes over the memorial as a salute to the many veterans of Hunsdon who were there,right on cue at the end of the service, beautiful!. Both aircraft appeared from the North,and over the trees that provide the backdrop to the memorial.
Too tired at the moment to post appropriate pics, but hopefully these three will suffice to wet the appetite.
A hastily snapped lanc right overhead….and low!.
The Service in full swing.
Air Commodore Garwood giving his very evocative speech on Hunsdon and its operations.

Not Manston is it??