Originally Posted by
Cornish Jack
Only once saw a '36 in flight but heard them frequently as a child. They routed inbound over Cornwall and the noise was unmistakeable - to me, it was reminiscent of a motor cycle! Surprised no mention made of the other crash of a 36 in UK . An odd tale with the version I heard being that it suffered a main engine shutdown and, for whatever reason, the crew bailed out. The aircraft circled on its own for nearly an hour and finally crashed at or near Lechlade, the wreckage spreading across three counties! - the county borders coincide near Lechlade. My knowledge of it comes from the fact that my brother (then in the RAF) was on guard duty at the site for 24 hours. While, today, I find it strange that this incident has not been mentioned, at the time, aircraft (especially military types) crashed often enough to make such things relatively unremarkable.
Lacock, not Lechlade, and it's firmly in just the one county. I excavated the site many moons ago and have a few parts of it.