Short Stirling recovery in Holland.

[Airframes]

The BBC News has reported that a Short Stirling, lost in 1943, is to be recovered from a lake near Amsterdam. The aircraft, BK716, from Downham Market, was located earlier this year, and it is thought the remains of the crew, already identified from records, may still be on board.
There is concern that the local council may be planning to use a crane "grabber" to raise the wreck, rather than the traditional method of employing a coffer dam to drain the local area., or use air bag lifting gear. The use of a "grabber" could, of course, cause serious damage, and small artefacts could be lost, making it difficult to identify remains.
The full details to date can be found on the BBC News web-site.

 

[Snautzer01]

The BBC News has reported that a Short Stirling, lost in 1943, is to be recovered from a lake near Amsterdam. The aircraft, BK716, from Downham Market, was located earlier this year, and it is thought the remains of the crew, already identified from records, may still be on board.
There is concern that the local council may be planning to use a crane "grabber" to raise the wreck, rather than the traditional method of employing a coffer dam to drain the local area., or use air bag lifting gear. The use of a "grabber" could, of course, cause serious damage, and small artefacts could be lost, making it difficult to identify remains.
The full details to date can be found on the BBC News web-site.

That is not the Dutch way. I know for a fact that large amouts of money are spent to retrieve even the slightest bit of human remains of ww2 pilots or just the debry of their planes. It would be very very bad if a grabber is to be used. I can and will not imagine this is going to happen. It would create and outroar on a scale not often seen in Holland. So i do think this bbc thing is kind of lost in translation.
I will look in to it. Ohh and by the way retrieval is not a counsels job as such. Money wise it is but national goverment oversees all of it. War graves are still a kind of honour thing around here and i do think we honour our liberators as they should be.
We do not forget as a country those man and woman.

 

[Airframes]

I agree, and I thought it strange that the local council are directly involved. However, I've only posted a brief summary of the news as reported by the BBC, and I hope ( and believe) that the recovery will be done correctly.

 

[Snautzer01]

I agree, and I thought it strange that the local council are directly involved. However, I've only posted a brief summary of the news as reported by the BBC, and I hope ( and believe) that the recovery will be done correctly.

Strangely enough local council is involved. Permission and such. But when ever an actual dig is starting the big guys will be there, laying the law. One of the reasons why there are still wrecks in the ground is just that. Local council being afraid for what reasons. Costs danger of pollution. But when the shovel hits the ground, there are strict and costly laws to obey. There is a nation wide plane to investigate and retrieve all known sites.

 

[Snautzer01]

Flevoland Erfgoed - Short Stirling III BK716 google translate is your friend.

 

[Crimea_River]

I hope they do the right thing, both with the deceased and the wreck itself. A grabber may not be so bad, once the remains are removed, if the wreck is in poor shape anyway.

 

[Ruud]

you need permission to remove Nazi bunkers from your farm land. I grew up among those bunkers. Only in the last 20 years have they started to be removed. Nederland takes WWII artifacts seriously.

 

[Marcel]

On the other hand we have a great German bunker here that has been taken from the volunteers that were maintaining it and is given to nature for the nesting of bats. Sad thing is that the bats don't seem to want it. Now it's full of water and quickly decaying for nothing.

 

[GrauGeist]

With utmost respect to the crew, I sincerely hope this Stirling is intact, as there are no complete examples to be found and can be raised with as little damage as possible.

 

[Snautzer01]

There is only pieces. Perhaps a deep impact engine. If not the Luftwaffe would have just got the plane. Quite efficient They had plenty of experience. I posted a few pics how they did,

 

[Reddington]

Being a Downham Market resident, I sure hope they are able to raise it successfully. While the airfield is gone, most of the buildings remain. I would love to see the boys successfully brought back to the UK. They deserve it.

 

[gruad]

The Dutch have always been good to Uk aircrew offering free holidays to air gunners after the war in gratitude.

 

[NICKVB]

There is only pieces. Perhaps a deep impact engine. If not the Luftwaffe would have just got the plane. Quite efficient They had plenty of experience. I posted a few pics how they did,

Seemingly the plane went down in a lake - the Netherlands had a lot more water inland then than now. The Germans probably did not want to spend the resources to get it.

 

[Snautzer01]

Seemingly the plane went down in a lake - the Netherlands had a lot more water inland then than now. The Germans probably did not want to spend the resources to get it.

You will be suprised what the germans did with wrecks and how far they went to reclaim the dead and scrap metal.

This one probably it went out of control burning and dove into the water from high up. Water is hard as concrete then. Results will be fragments.and a few heavey mangled pieces. Larger pieces would have been found much sooner.

 

[OldParts]

Flevoland Erfgoed - Short Stirling III BK716 google translate is your friend.

I followed the link provided by Snautzer01 and translated the Dutch to English using Google Translate. Thanks Snautzer 01 for that tip. I have used Babel in the past. It took a bit of work but the link did not provide any specific information about the plans to salvage the Short Stirling BK716. It does provide details about the raid on which the plane was lost and the crew. It also outlines plans for a memorial and plans to salvage a number of planes. The U.S. still has recovery teams (or did have) doing DNA analysis on remains (bone fragments really) from WW2 and Vietnam. I supervised an anthropologist who had trained at the University of Tennessee. He left the university where I was working and went to work for (I think) the defense department. I have seen his name in articles or newspapers a couple of times. I think he was involved with a P-51 recovered from water near London that folks had seen crash but was never found and another with a crew flying the hump who hit a mountain. Years ago when I belonged to the experimental pilots association (all I did was look at the ads) there were some articles about recovered planes. An F4F was recovered from one of the Great Lakes (they had side wheel training carriers) that was in good shape because of the depth and cold water. I also remember a Brewster Buffalo was found but was (I think) on the Russian side of the border. Interesting history!