RAF Bovingdon - 1960s

[OUAQUKGF Ops]

Midair Collision B17 42-37850 and C47 43-48506 Bovingdon 31st March 1945

B17 42-37850. Photo credit USAAF Nose Art Project.



Sadly the present pandemic has prevented the villagers of Sarratt from holding their planned Commemoration and Service marking the passage of seventy-five years since this accident occurred in their parish. The B17 was on a self-proficiency training detail and was crewed by two pilots and two flight engineers. The skipper was Capt Walter P Hottenstein. The C47 was crewed by two pilots, the skipper being 1st Lt Maurice F Thornburg. Both crews were drawn from 1402 Base Unit AAF which provided hangar and flightline maintenance facilities at Bovingdon. The Bovingdon weather actual at 1400z would indicate that the runway in use would have been 22. The accident report for the B17 is worth reading. Like-wise an eye-witness account by the late Jim Burgin of Chipperfield is reproduced here - his full memoir occurs way back in the depth of this thread.





Credit U.S. Army Women's Museum

Credit U.S. Army Women's Museum

The two crash sites were on open land between the villages of Chipperfield and Sarratt. The B17 burned, the C47 did not. There were no survivors.



B17 aftermath. Photo credit Gregory Edmund (USAAF)


C47. Photo credit Gregory Edmund (USAAF)



C47 Photo credit Gregory Edmund (USAAF)

Emma Jane Windham was one of the Flight Engineers on the B17.

Credit U.S. Army Women's Museum.

More on Emma Jane here:https://www.expressnews.com/news/loc...en-5880802.php

I'm most grateful to Gregory Edmund of the Sarratt History Society for his assistance on this post. Other brief details and pictures of the aircrew can be found here:https://twitter.com/sarratthistory?lang=en