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G-ANHG
9th Jun 2016, 04:52
I travel from Seattle to England every July to run a vintage car weekend (Pre-War Prescott ? (http://www.prewarprescott.com)). We race up Prescott hill on Saturday and then run a navigation rally on the Sunday around the Cotswolds. On the Sunday, I try to fit in as many fords as possible, and there is a great website - WetRoads Entertainment (http://www.wetroads.com) which pinpoints every surviving ford in England, county by county, giving grid reference, photos and details of their navigability, etc.

The rallies are light-hearted treasure hunts, but I always look for historically-significant points of interest to set clues to give the day some depth. Over the years, during my route researches, I have found numerous local memorials placed at the crash sites of various WW2 aircraft which are thought-provoking and offer an opportunity to keep the memory of the lost crews alive.

It occurred to me that I have not found a website out there, like the wet roads website, that brings together data on all of these local crash site memorials, most of which seem to be hidden away on footpaths, woodlands or remote hillsides.

So I'd like to throw out the suggestion that such a web resource would be useful, of interest and also help preserve the memory of those who perished for our freedom both returning from operations and in training exercises and collisions. I know that the aviation archaeologists have a pretty good handle on where the crash sites are, and there are plenty of resources related to 'lost' airfields, but is there a user-friendly resource that lists these crash site memorial stones and plaques, and details the lost crews?

Wander00
9th Jun 2016, 13:04
Certainly there is one that covers wartime crash sites in France - I will search it out

Mandator
9th Jun 2016, 13:43
The Airfield Research Group covers aviation memorials and covers these by County. Here is a link to the ARG's Lincolnshire subjects - click on memorials to see what they have in Lincs:

https://www.airfieldresearchgroup.org.uk/forum/lincolnshire


Other Counties are available.

knarfw
9th Jun 2016, 14:11
RAF Crash Sites 1942 ? 1945 ? aircrashsites.co.uk (http://aircrashsites.co.uk/raf-crash-sites-1942-1945/)

knarfw
9th Jun 2016, 14:12
aircrashsites.co.uk ? Air Crash Sites, Air Raids & Bomb Sites, WW2 history (http://aircrashsites.co.uk/)

Wander00
9th Jun 2016, 16:18
Tous les monuments - A?rost?les (http://www.aerosteles.net/liste-fr) covers wartime and post-war, by departement

Wensleydale
9th Jun 2016, 16:43
I believe that their are a few Facebook sites that list and picture the memorials.

dragartist
9th Jun 2016, 17:06
Chap I know over the Bridge in Godmanchester has spent the last few years raising monies to erect a memorial to a Sterling crew which crashed along Cow Lane (not far from the A14 Junction) I admire what he has done and have attended a few of his fund raising events. He has put an awful lot of effort into tracing relatives and is holding a special day for them shortly. Only today he put a post up that Thwaites had donated a couple of slabs for the occasion. He has yet to determine the exact location of the crash site.
A quick search for Godmanchester Stirling on Facebook will take interested parties to the story. It has been fascinating reading with more or less weekly instalments with photos.

aerobelly
9th Jun 2016, 18:10
On the Sunday, I try to fit in as many fords as possible, and there is a great website - WetRoads Entertainment (http://www.wetroads.com) which pinpoints every surviving ford in England, county by county, giving grid reference, photos and details of their navigability, etc.

Hotel Golf, it's www.wetroads.co.uk (http://www.wetroads.co.uk/)

I tried it because last night I was looking at one of my 1960/70s 1" rally navigation maps and remembering the hours it would take to mark up each new map with known or found out amendments, add grid numbers all over, write on the edges which was the next map, etc. Then it might just last 4 rallies if lucky or only 1 wet one. So I'm going to open it again because there were some hand-annotated fords on there -- sheet 141 Brecon.

I've still got hundreds of them :8


'a

sunnybunny
9th Jun 2016, 18:46
try this
Peak District Aircraft Crash Sites Map (http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/pages/pdmap.htm)

Wander00
9th Jun 2016, 19:17
This mention of rallying and maps reminds me of a nav we had on 360 in the early days. Dave Carrington crewed one of the works Hillman Hunters in the England-Australia (World Cup?) Rally in late 60s - is he still around?

tmmorris
9th Jun 2016, 19:28
Last time I was in Crickhowell I bought a very good book of aircraft crash sites in the Brecon Beacons. I'm trying to get round them all during cadet activities over the next few years. Some are quite hard to find now.