Halifax II (3 Viewers)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules



THX. My pleasure.
 
Hi everyone, another question: on 24 may 1943 a Halifax started but couldn't leave the runway. It crashed at the end and the crew got away with minor injuries. According to the Operation Book the aircraft was category E.1. Any idea what that means?
 
Hi, I'm still working on a book about the crash of this Halifax on 25 july 1943 at Ten Boer in the Netherlands. One crewmember survived the crash and was made POW. This was Bomb Aimer F/O Alexander Joseph Sochowski from Wolsley, Saskatchewan, Canada. After his release he was repatriated to Canada. I assume he was debriefed on his return. Could there be a possibility to find his debriefing report somewhere online?
And another question: Was the separation between sergeants and officers as strict with the RCAF as with the RAF?
 
Alexander Joseph Sochowski had a brother, Michael, who initially trained with the RCAF as a Pilot but ended up in the Army in the Royal Canadian Regiment as a Private. Service number A118061 and unfortunately Died of wounds caused by a mine at Cassino 30/5/1944. Page 8 on the link below, in his service file, lists his 5 brothers at date of death with Alexander being aged 25, POW No. 1649 Stalag Luft III.

Collection search - SOCHOWSKI, MICHAEL

Application Description
recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca

Hope this is of interest,
Alan.
 
Thanks Alan, every piece of information is welcome.

I have another question. Hr 864 LQ-M was on an operation against Essen on 25 july 1943. The a/c was shot down at 23.35 over Ten Boer in the Netherlands. Some sources say that the bomber stream would cross the Dutch coast at Egmond. That is a good 100 km south of where the plane was actually shot down. Another source says that the bombers entered the Continent over the Frisian Islands, which would correspond with the place of the crash. Has anyone any idea where I could find the actual route? Is there a possibillity that this northerly route was taken as a diversion to mislead the German defence after the first attack of Operation Gomorrah on Hamburg the night before? It would mean so much to find out what the reason was for this crash at this place. There seems no mention that for some reason they strayed of course, but that still may be an explanation. I hope somebody can shed some light here.
 
Thank you very much Alan! This site holds exactly the info I was looking for. I'll keep the site in mind.
 
Hello everyone,
After some distraction I'm back at my desk. New question: What does A.P.I. mean? Navigators were given a lecture on it.
 
You're welcome.
As to how it (they) work, I'm not really sure. I have a vague idea, which would take a lot of room to explain, and may be way off the mark !
But basically, it used data from the airspeed and magnetic compass to continuously compute a position in the sky, displayed on the relevant dials as lat and long.
The P.P.I. was an instrument that could then project this info onto the Navigator's charts which, when used with info from Gee and the Nav's calculations, allows a reasonably accurate plot of the the aircraft's position along the planned plot line.
 
To all of you who looked into my questions and supplied me with many answers I say Thank you very much! I am in the final stages of a book on the endeavours of Halifax HR864, LQ-M that was shot down in the late evening of 25 July 1943 over the province of Groningen in The Netherlands. (If it's Groningen, never say Holland!). The book contains the short lifespan of this airplane and its crew and a more general history of 405 Sqn (RCAF) to which it belonged. In the last chapter I try to make a short evaluation of Arthur Harris's bombing offensive during WW2. The book will be published later this year in the Dutch language. But I can imagine that it will be of some interest in the UK and in Canada. If that is the case I'm very much willing to see that a translation can be made. Maybe some of you would like to let me know if you think such a translation would find a market in the English speaking world.
But for now, I can't tell you how much your information helped me to put the story together! Cheers!
 
My book on the crash of Halifax HR864, LQ-M, is written in Dutch. Needless to say that I've mentioned in the introduction the great help from you members of this interesting forum. The book turned out into a short history of 405 Squadron RCAF and an analysis of the bomber offensive bij Bomber Command against Germany. The outcome of this analysis is that the commonly held idea that this offensive was a massive failure and amounted to a needless terror on the German civil population is largely contradicted.
I hope to find some funds to publish in the Netherlands. But I also am going to send some copies to my (commercial pilot) nephew in London hoping that he might attract some interest amongst publishers to publish an English translation for the public in the UK and Canada. Meanwhile it was great fun being in contact with you all. Thanks again!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 4 (members: 0, guests: 4)

Similar threads

R
Crash of H.P. Halifax LK743 'NF-J'
Replies
0
Views
305
Roger Freeman
R
R
Handley Page Halifax B/Met Mk V Series 1a Serial LK743 (NF-J) Crash 8th January 1944.
Replies
3
Views
981
Geoffrey Sinclair
G
J
Halifax Serial Number
Replies
0
Views
755
jscott27
J
Halifax I
Replies
3
Views
1K
Wurger
T
WW II Bomber crash Can anyone ID this WW II Bomber? The third photo is obviously an oxygen tank.
Replies
5
Views
2K
Toby
T
Menu
Log in
Register