Chugalug (your #8162),
...As to Anson N9732's exploits of 1 June 1940, I am inclined to believe the British account rather than the German one...
Having said that, you have to admit that it does stretch credulity a bit, doesn't it ? It was worth gongs all round, I'd say !
...I see that the 500 Squadron's Ansons were subject to a local mod carried out free of charge by a local engineering company to provide mounts for the side mounted .303 MGs...
They would be Vickers "K" (drum fed) guns. But the wonderful thing was - what you could do with your aircraft in those days without asking permission from anybody ! In the same way we happily discarded the last section of our "greenhouses", and filed off the nuisance catch between throttle and mixture controls on our VVs. There was no comeback from Higher Authority. Nowadays you probably have to put a case up to be allowed to touch-up the paintwork.
...Very glad that the LAC WOP got a DFM (together with his Sgt Nav). We had an ex LAC gunner on Battles on the 30 Sqn Assn. His complaint to his dying day was that the two officers up front got gongs...
The most scandalous example of this is, of course, the award of the first (posthumous) RAF VCs of WWII to F/O Garland (pilot) and Sgt. Gray (observer) for their attack on the Albert Canal bridge with a "Battle". The Wop/AG (LAC Reynolds) got nothing (
presumably, he was not part of the decision-taking, and so did not have to be brave to get killed !)
At least they are all buried together - there is equality in death.
You couldn't make it up. Danny.