Filming for 633 Sqdn including the Mosquito crash scene took place in July/Aug 1963 and the film was released in Jun 1964.
Along with a schoolmate, Mike (both of us being members of 2204 [Chesham] Sqdn ATC) we decided to pay a visit to Bovingdon early in the school summer holidays ostensibly to scrounge a flight with one of the Comms Sqdns.
We sat in the terminal building along with 4 or 5 other cadets from local squadrons when Donald Houston walked in and with a cheery 'good morning' headed for the main toilets with a newspaper under his arm. We were told there was no station flying programmed so Mike and I wandered off to the hangars to watch the filming. Being in 'RAF' type uniforms nobody took any notice of us when we lurked behind the camera (just the one Panavision; no back up VCR in those days) and arc lights while a couple of scenes were shot involving Houston and fellow star Cliff Robertson, then at the front of the hangar we noticed the aircraft for the 'crash' scene was parked on the apron ready for it's big scene next day. We walked over and looked at it and from only inches away those 'bullet holes' were seen to be bits of thin plywood skilfully painted and glued to the fuselage. Regretfully I never thought to note the date of this but as I said it must have been mid/late July and was the day before filming of the crash took place; John Crewdson was hovering in the background.
My log book shows that we both got a flight in Anson PH859 on 5 Jun 1963 and our visit was during July early in the school holidays. My next flight was 2 hours in Shackleton WR966 on 29 August (ie well after the 'crash' scene) but that was from RAF Aldergrove; we were on summer camp at RAF Ballykelly but due to re-surfacing we flew from Aldergrove.
Last edited by chevvron; 29th Apr 2024 at 09:47.