Remains of WW2 crew 'stored by collector'

[Geriaviator]

Strange and distressing story (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11551051/Remains-WW2-airmen-crashed-secret-mission-76-years-later-hour-away-wreckage.html)about a weirdo who recovered bodies and wreckage from a Mosquito crash and kept them in his 'museum'. Sounds as if the Mosquito was carrying the Highball bouncing anti-ship weapon when it crashed.

[SLXOwft]

These were partial remains that have been buried in their existing graves.

They were killed while flying 618 Squadron Mosquito DZ543 carrying two Highballs one of which may have detonated on impact.

186495 Pilot Officer ALFRED ROBERT WILLIAM MILNE RAFVR 22 Years Old
1323395 Warrant Officer ERIC ALAN STUBBS RAFVR 22 Years Old

https://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/planes/44/dz543.html

[ShyTorque]

For me, this thread is a bizarre coincidence. Just this morning I was reading through a list of Peak District and Pennines aircraft crashes and the crash of this “Highball” carrying Mosquito was one of them. The account I read mentioned the fact that the crew were not in the aircraft wreckage.

What a sick individual this “collector” is.

[NutLoose]

With the live arms he possessed, I do wonder if he found the remains in the wreckage he recovered then panicked and sadly disposed of them on his land for fear if he contacted the Police his weapons hoard would have been discovered.

What a tragic story and one hopes those family members who knew them will have already gone to their graves without having to learn about this.

[Davef68]

There always were some unsavoury rumours about so-called 'recoveries' removing/destroying human remains found on wreck sites to avoid the complication/'inconvenience' of having to stop digging and hand the site over to the MOD. One reason for the Protection of Military Remains Act making all wreck sites protected.

[Asturias56]

reading the press he's clearly someone with ""issues"

[GeeRam]

These were partial remains that have been buried in their existing graves.

They were killed while flying 618 Squadron Mosquito DZ543 carrying two Highballs one of which may have detonated on impact.

186495 Pilot Officer ALFRED ROBERT WILLIAM MILNE RAFVR 22 Years Old
1323395 Warrant Officer ERIC ALAN STUBBS RAFVR 22 Years Old

By astonishing and extraordinary co-incidence, this was the 'sister' aircraft to the ex-highball Mosquito Mk.IV, DZ542, currently for sale in NZ.

https://www.platinumfighters.com/inventory/1944-dehavilland-mosquito-b-iv-bomber/

[ex82watcher]

reading the press he's clearly someone with ""issues"
This person featured in a TV documentary a few years ago after he 'exposed' himself.During the subsequent police investigation,I seem to remember they found a live non-registered firearm,and he went to jail..Some years earlier,I bought a pitot tube from him which I was assured came from a Lightning,but which I later found was about 18'' too short to be such.

[SLXOwft]

By astonishing and extraordinary co-incidence, this was the 'sister' aircraft to the ex-highball Mosquito Mk.IV, DZ542, currently for sale in NZ.

https://www.platinumfighters.com/inventory/1944-dehavilland-mosquito-b-iv-bomber/

Thread drift
Avspecs have done stirling work getting a number of Mossies airworthy - it would be great to see one regularly in home skies again but sadly I cannot see the USD6.9 million being forthcoming from a UK source.

I always enjoyed seeing (and hearing) RR299/G-ASKH before the tragic accident near Barton.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/542301dce5274a1317000b69/dft_avsafety_pdf_501355.pdf

[Herod]

SLXOwft. Check out The People's Mosquito. You may be pleasantly surprised.

[sycamore]

This saga does raise questions about a search for the aircrew at the time of the accident..Pretty bloody callous really...

[Brewster Buffalo]

This saga does raise questions about a search for the aircrew at the time of the accident..Pretty bloody callous really...

Possibly the aircraft crashed vertically and it was not possible to exacavate the resulting crater and recover the bodies at the time. Though the article mentions that the bomb rolled from the plane into the orchard of a nearby farm was later recovered by the RAF.

[SLXOwft]

SLXOwft. Check out The People's Mosquito. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Thanks Herod but I was aware, and wish them all the best but with assets of <£600k (which I assume includes the moulds and jigs imported from NZ) and a target of £8 million it may be sometime before they are successful. Would be nice to see USAE BAE and RR chuck a substantial donations their way, I am unclear if the Airbus support includes any significant financial element.

Still rather healthier that the Mosquito Pathfinder Trust, which in early 2021 was aiming at bringing DZ542 to the UK and completing the restoration to flying status. (YE 2021 Income £1,653 expenditure £2,491)

Back to the thread
Although one wonders who else KW disturbed over the decades. He was prominent in the aviation memorabilia world, his collection and activities were the subject of an Independent article in November 1995, among other things he owned two EE Lightnings (F1A XM169 and F.3 XR749). I suspect it is a case of obsession blinding him to the ethical dimension.

I thought I was clear above: the crew's partial remains were recovered at the time and buried in CWGC plots close to their respective homes.

[David Thompson]

Back to the thread
Although one wonders who else KW disturbed over the decades. He was prominent in the aviation memorabilia world, his collection and activities were the subject of an Independent article in November 1995, among other things he owned two EE Lightnings (F1A XM169 and F.3 XR749). I suspect it is a case of obsession blinding him to the ethical dimension.

Article from the Independent On Sunday , 5 November 1995 here ; https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/collecting-ghosts-in-an-aircraft-graveyard-1580601.html .
The majority of his 'whole' aircraft collection is now with Morayvia at Kinloss but the fate of the 'wreckology' collection has yet to be determined but the identifiable personal items , of which there were many , should be returned to the next of kin of the deceased .

[GeeRam]

Thanks Herod but I was aware, and wish them all the best but with assets of <£600k (which I assume includes the moulds and jigs imported from NZ) and a target of £8 million it may be sometime before they are successful. Would be nice to see USAE BAE and RR chuck a substantial donations their way, I am unclear if the Airbus support includes any significant financial element.

Still rather healthier that the Mosquito Pathfinder Trust, which in early 2021 was aiming at bringing DZ542 to the UK and completing the restoration to flying status. (YE 2021 Income £1,653 expenditure £2,491)


Pathfinder Trust abandoned restoring DZ542 when the late Glyn Powell's FB.26 project became available, which is in terms of parts is substantially complete and so a much better prospect of returning to the air, and I believe they acquired this in preference to continuing with DZ542, hence DZ542 now being available to others to buy.
However, those accounts seem at odds with that, unless they have blown all they had in the airframe trade and have not been able to raise any more to progress any further?


Back to the thread
Although one wonders who else KW disturbed over the decades. He was prominent in the aviation memorabilia world, his collection and activities were the subject of an Independent article in November 1995, among other things he owned two EE Lightnings (F1A XM169 and F.3 XR749).

I didn't realise it was THAT Ken Ward....!!

[Asturias56]

This saga does raise questions about a search for the aircrew at the time of the accident..Pretty bloody callous really...

There was a war on, planes crashed every day - it's very hard to say but there were more important things to do at the time. If the bodies were easily found they did it but no investment of time and kit for a wide search or a deep dig

[goofer3]

There was a war on, planes crashed every day - it's very hard to say but there were more important things to do at the time. If the bodies were easily found they did it but no investment of time and kit for a wide search or a deep dig
Plus they just didn't have the equipment then that is available today. I was on one dig where we recoverd 4 radial engines, not very deep, but in marshy ground. Easy with a tracked hymac.

[_Agrajag_]

I mentioned in another thread here that, as kids in the 1950's, two of us used to play in a crater known locally as "The Spinney", where a heavy aircraft of some type had crashed during the war. That shallow crater was full of bits of metal and other stuff amongst all the brambles and nettles. We found a lot of fairly large calibre ammunition, on badly corroded belts, that we took as souvenirs and showed off at school to our friends. It was quite possible that there were still human remains there as well, as the aircraft was in pretty small bits, scattered over a fairly large area.

As above, whether anyone had the time or resources to properly excavate a crash site at the time is debatable. There was a war on, and I would suggest that there was more effort put into recovering the remains of allied crews than of Nazi crews (and I'm reasonably sure the wreckage we were playing around with was most probably German, just because they was no real reason for an allied bomber to have crashed in that location just west of London).

[ShyTorque]

In the late 1970s a crashed Miles Master was recovered from a field near Tern Hill airfield. It had crashed after a mid-air collision when joining the circuit during WW2 but the ground had been very marshy in those days and it rapidly sank to some depth. It proved impractical to recover it back then.

Decades later the area had been drained and cultivated but the exact location hadn't been accurately recorded. A local farmer's labourer remembered the crash, took the team to the field and pointed to a spot, telling them "Dig just there". They did and he was right. The pilot was still in the Master (which was the reason for the much belated recovery attempt). He was subsequently buried with appropriate military honours.

Strangely, I lived in one of the later OMQs on "Dawsons Rough" at Shawbury. Whilst digging the garden I often found small items of debris from an unknown type of aircraft. I found a number of shattered pieces of Perspex, aluminium skin, hydraulic pipes and aircraft fittings. I never did find out whether they were from an actual crash, or from a previous scrap heap.

Edit: Found an article about the above recovery: https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/features/2020/10/26/flashback-october-1978/

[_Agrajag_]

For those with an interest in old aviation crash sites, I've just tried to find the location of the place where we played as kids and found bits of wreckage. This is based on my memory from over 60 years ago, so is at best sketchy, and we moved away from Higher Denham out to Gerrards Cross in 1961, and I've never been back there since. I am absolutely certain that it was south of the railway line, and north of Old Rectory Lane, as we didn't go under the tunnel under the railway line to get there.

No idea at all if the area was ever properly excavated, but I do remember that there were bomb craters all around. We lived on Lower Road, Higher Denham, at the time, with the Martin Baker factory at the very end of that road (it's visible to the left of this OS map clip, just above the word "weir"), which may well have been a wartime target, perhaps? I have a feeling that it may have been an aircraft factory during the war, but had switched to making ejection seats when we lived there. I clearly remember the loud bangs from them testing them on a vertical crane-like structure they had down there.

Perhaps might be better if I posted in this in the history area, maybe the mods can best decide on that. The red ellipse is roughly where I think the crash site was:



https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1901x1066/aircraft_crash_site_3120ef2749aba23f226edcf368cfd70f315e100b .jpg

[David Thompson]

More from the Bransdale Mosquito inquest which was attended by family of one of the deceased ;
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/23203493.airmens-remains-moved-north-yorkshire-crash-site-inquest-hears/

[Lono]

Maybe more appropriate to a Dentists' Rumour Network, but a curious line in this report: -

And pre-emptive dental work performed by the RAF on servicemen flying at high altitude was noted in teeth.

What does this reference? Fillings to avoid barodontalgia perhaps - how could one tell this was pre-emtive work, rather than reactive?

[_Agrajag_]

Maybe more appropriate to a Dentists' Rumour Network, but a curious line in this report: -



What does this reference? Fillings to avoid barodontalgia perhaps - how could one tell this was pre-emtive work, rather than reactive?


Yes, pretty common. Also common for dentists in the UK in the 1950's to fill healthy molars that had deeper than average fissures on the top, but no sign of decay. All mine were done as a small child, causing significant damage when some molars have split later in life and have needed crowns fitting.

[Flugzeug A]

There’s mention of him doing other digs , without permission , on the Yorkshire Aircraft site.
I hadn’t seen the site before its’ mention here , so I’ve been reading some of it...
I assume he came upon these remains at the crash site because the original recovery missed them but , why remove them from there & having done that , why leave them on the surface & out in the open?

[Davef68]

For those with an interest in old aviation crash sites, I've just tried to find the location of the place where we played as kids and found bits of wreckage. This is based on my memory from over 60 years ago, so is at best sketchy, and we moved away from Higher Denham out to Gerrards Cross in 1961, and I've never been back there since. I am absolutely certain that it was south of the railway line, and north of Old Rectory Lane, as we didn't go under the tunnel under the railway line to get there.

No idea at all if the area was ever properly excavated, but I do remember that there were bomb craters all around. We lived on Lower Road, Higher Denham, at the time, with the Martin Baker factory at the very end of that road (it's visible to the left of this OS map clip, just above the word "weir"), which may well have been a wartime target, perhaps? I have a feeling that it may have been an aircraft factory during the war, but had switched to making ejection seats when we lived there. I clearly remember the loud bangs from them testing them on a vertical crane-like structure they had down there.

Perhaps might be better if I posted in this in the history area, maybe the mods can best decide on that. The red ellipse is roughly where I think the crash site was:



https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1901x1066/aircraft_crash_site_3120ef2749aba23f226edcf368cfd70f315e100b .jpg

Air Britain published a list of all known crashes in the areas, whilst several are listed as Denham, there isn't any specific enough to identify the area (There is one on the golf course) and most are Tiger Moths. Note It doesn't cover non-UK operated aircraft either

[Lono]

Yes, pretty common. Also common for dentists in the UK in the 1950's to fill healthy molars that had deeper than average fissures on the top, but no sign of decay. All mine were done as a small child, causing significant damage when some molars have split later in life and have needed crowns fitting.

Thanks, and ouch!

[thetimesreader84]

For those with an interest in old aviation crash sites, I've just tried to find the location of the place where we played as kids and found bits of wreckage. This is based on my memory from over 60 years ago, so is at best sketchy, and we moved away from Higher Denham out to Gerrards Cross in 1961, and I've never been back there since. I am absolutely certain that it was south of the railway line, and north of Old Rectory Lane, as we didn't go under the tunnel under the railway line to get there.

No idea at all if the area was ever properly excavated, but I do remember that there were bomb craters all around. We lived on Lower Road, Higher Denham, at the time, with the Martin Baker factory at the very end of that road (it's visible to the left of this OS map clip, just above the word "weir"), which may well have been a wartime target, perhaps? I have a feeling that it may have been an aircraft factory during the war, but had switched to making ejection seats when we lived there. I clearly remember the loud bangs from them testing them on a vertical crane-like structure they had down there.

Perhaps might be better if I posted in this in the history area, maybe the mods can best decide on that. The red ellipse is roughly where I think the crash site was:



https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1901x1066/aircraft_crash_site_3120ef2749aba23f226edcf368cfd70f315e100b .jpg
A look on Google Maps "satellite view" shows a disturbance in the crops (they are a lot more brown, with gaps than the rest of the field) almost smack in the middle of your location. It could be a natural phenomena, but equally such things are associated with buried remains of structures or, in this case, potentially a wreck.

It might be worth an interested party finding out who the landowner is and getting permission for a field walk or metal detector search.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_archaeology

Disclaimer, I am not an archaeologist.

[India Four Two]

When I first went to a dentist in Canada in 1971, he looked in my mouth and laughed: "You've just come from England haven't you? I can tell by the terrible dentistry."

[_Agrajag_]

A look on Google Maps "satellite view" shows a disturbance in the crops (they are a lot more brown, with gaps than the rest of the field) almost smack in the middle of your location. It could be a natural phenomena, but equally such things are associated with buried remains of structures or, in this case, potentially a wreck.

It might be worth an interested party finding out who the landowner is and getting permission for a field walk or metal detector search.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_archaeology

Disclaimer, I am not an archaeologist.


Thanks, there was a lot of bit sof metal there at the time, mostly aluminium, plus some larger corroded lumps of steel. It was my friend, Peter, that found the ammunition belts, partly buried in a large patch of nettles. As already mentioned, there were bomb craters around the area, some with water in the bottom. Our parents had told us to not go near there, but of course, being 7 or 8 years old we just ignored them. I clearly remember riding our bikes up Old Rectory Lane and leaving them at the side of the lane, just before the tunnel under the railway, before we went exploring. At a guess this would have been around 1959 or thereabouts. Whatever had crashed there must have been quite large, as I remember there were bits of metal covering a wide area (or it seemed a wide area to us as kids).

I've always suspected that it was most probably a German bomber that crashed there, perhaps en route to the Martin Baker factory a short distance away, but that's pure supposition, as I have no idea of the calibre of the rounds we recovered from there, other than they seemed (compared to the size of our hands) to be very large. My dad had a .22 rifle and I had a .177 Diana airgun, so I would have had a rough idea of the calibre. I know the rounds were a lot longer than the width of my hand, and that we could only get around half a dozen of them into the pockets of our shorts, so somewhere around .50 at a guess. Thinking back it seems pretty shocking that we took these rounds into school (Denham County Primary School) to show them off to our mates.