Originally Posted by
l.garey
Thanks for that Quemerford. That piece is from 2004 and I haven't taken it any further. I can't get to Kew, so maybe it's worth checking to see if there is anything new, but I doubt it.
Laurence
Well there are on-site researchers who will do work for those who cannot attend in person. It's an interesting file, but doesn't show anything other than a tragic accident, which occurred at a challenging time. A great amount of post-accident searching was done, and a thorough investigation came up with entirely plausible conclusions. No conspiracy. Also no evidence of gold (no idea where that came from, but one should never let facts get in the way of a good story).
However there are a number of statements which are incorrect in various recent analyses of the accident, and these seem to have started people off on a search for some kind of 'mystery/cover-up' hypothesis. One, that passengers were off-loaded and replaced. In fact 'AGX had been u/s prior to 1 March and so there was only off-loading based on that situation. Indeed, the aircraft ended up carrying items which had been offloaded from other flights, so nothing unusual in any event. Another, that folks on board were 'VIP' and therefore targets. Well yes, but it was wartime so everyone was a target. Again nothing exceptional there, as the cases of Isoroku Yamamoto and Leslie Howard show.
Also I saw somewhere a statement that searches were only made in maritime areas and this isn't correct either.
And the file was downgraded from Secret in
1949, so that statement hasn't been correct for more than 70 years!