Hi anybody!

Still trying to find out more details about the aircraft my wife's uncle flew in. He was rear gunner - Sgt Denis Doyle. Killed in action.

Halifax II HR874 EY-B

Failed to return on Sept 6 1943 on the Mannheim Raid.

Eddie supplied me with much needed info back in January.

Want to build a model of the plane using the Revell kit.

My research suggests different configurations for MK 11s - some with nose turrets, some with nose turret replaced with a streamlined fairing.

The Revell kit doesn't have the fairing but does have the plexiglass nose for a GRII version.

Am assuming from the crew list that there was no front turret and upper turret was the low profile type.

Would this plane have had a nose streamline fairing or plexiglass?

Acutal plane is down as one of a batch of 152 built as B/GR Mk II series 1 and enetred service between March and July 1943.

Also on the lookout for any photographs of the actual plane! (You can but hope).

Finally thanks to Eddie I know that three of the crew survived -

Sgt Muldoon - navigator
Sgt G Jones - Air bomber
Sgt Mott - flight engineer

and am still trying to trace any info on them.

All the best

Pete O'Loughlin

Hi Pete,

The nearest serial to this, that I have seen a picture of, is HR 861 in "The HALIFAX File". It bears the plexiglass nose and "D" shaped tail fins. Can't see if or what type of top turret may be fitted as it's view is obscured by the port wing.

Hope this is of some use to you,

Regards Paul (MZ 924)

Hi

Thanks for the info.

Pete O'L

About those fins. Remember that they were also retrofitted in the field. So aircraft with consecutive serial numbers could be fitted with either the early type of fin or the D-type.

This could prove to be very difficult to determine what configuration this particular Halifax was flying with unless a pic turn up in a personal album or something of that sort.

Cheers

Cees

Thanks for the info.

I'm hoping a photo turns up but I'm not holding my breath!

Pete O'Loughlin

Hello

I'm Martyn Jones, son of Grenville Jones (bomb aimer) who was shot down in this aircraft on his first and only mission.

My dad sadly died last year (Friday 13th June 2008) at the age of 86 and it's now coming up to the first anniversary of his death. He talked very little about the war, RAF and POW camp and so I've been trying to gather information where I can, mainly off the internet.

He was born on 19 July 1921 and so would have been 22 at the time he was shot down. He survived the crash, bailing out with a parachute (and becoming a member of the Caterpillar Club) and ended up as a POW in Stalag IVb.

At the end of the war he left the RAF and became a draughtsman working on transformers at Metropolitan Vickers and then Ferranti, before becoming a CDT teacher for the last 10 years of his working life.

I have a copy of a typed flight record of this operation which I was kindly given by another POW at his funeral last year. I'm not sure where this originated from as it has a German name and address at the top and parts of it are in German, although most of it is in English. It details the full crew and those KIA and the destination of some of the survivors. There are also some flight times mentioned, such as at Beachy Head.

If there is anything I can help you with just let me know, and if you have any other info or pictures about HR878 they'd be gratefully received.

Regards

Martyn Jones