Gidday all i am trying to find some information on my Great Uncle who was killed in 1944. I have the following information from a site RAF DAVIDSTOW MOOR CRASH LOG 1944 28/12/1944 1100hrs Hawker Tempest V EJ811 of 33 Squadron based at RAF Predannack suffered engine failure and crashed in fields at Tregiddle Farm, Cury 1¾ miles SW of Mawgan-in-Meneage. The aircraft was completely smashed and the pilot W/O N E M MacDonald killed. Any help greatly appreciated.
GD'day mate welcome to the site. As for infomation you seem to have more than many allready, the place,time and how he was killed. If you can get his military files from the appropiate Govt Dept then you will have much more info, that would be my starting point get all of his military files.
welcome to the frum. have you tried the squadron asociation? RAF history department etc are usually good sources, but it depends on who you get that day at Hendon on how helpful they will be. sometimes they refuse to help unless you present yourself in person. Have you got your uncle's service records? And crash records for '44 are tricky, someone filched all the Spitfire records for that year, and its possible the Tempest records went the same way.
Gidday Kitty : Thanks for your reply , My Great uncle was RNZAF and must have been attached to the RAF , the thing that puzzles me is that the crash listed above is a bit different from the story my Family had got , so im very keen to find out what exactly went on. Also i very much want to find out about him and what he did during the War. I will try and contact the RAF history department (bit hard to do from New Zealand ) but ill send them an e-mail. Once again thanks for your help
Welcome TazzyNZ. This is a little on 33sq RAF if you have not seen it already. http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/33_wwII.html Cheers Geoff
Thanks for that info Geoff it does help me , as it lists all the 33 SQN placements so i may be able to trace back a bit and find some more info...once again thanks.
could be worth a trawl of crash investigation groups in that area. i know there are some very active groups in the Peak District and also in Wales which were major training areas, and therefore dead bird country. I don't have time right now to do it, but if you google that, then trawl through there may be something. otherwise i would suggest actually contacting Peak District Air Crashes group and seeing if they have any contacts, but be careful with any info the PDAG give you as they can be a bit out of whck.
Further to my 1st post i have been to the NZDF Archives and have rec,d alot of further information. I also have the cause of the crash and the location which differs to the info that the RAF DAVIDSTOW MOOR CRASH LOG 1944 has given. I have a photo of my Great Uncle taken in belgium 1944 but do not have any more info than that im thinking its at 1 of the airfields that the RAF were at befor D-Day. Not sure how to get photos on to here so ppl can look if someone can let me no how ill post it on here.. thanks.
Ahh the old chestnut. So long as you have the images you want scanned in then what you do is this. Firstly click on the image below. Go to Go Advanced in order to answer the thread. Scroll beneath the text box to the attchments section I have highlighted as 1. Click Manage attchments and a new box will open up. In this you need to select Home, then select files, from this you will go into your list and choose the image you need. Tell it to then upload the file, which it will do. So long as it is not too big it will only take a few moments. Once that is done, click the little box on he bottom right of the image you want to use, then click insert. The next stage is to then click on the down arrow next to the little paperclip I have highlighted as 2. This will drop down a little menu listing any files you have attached to this post only. Choose the one you want, and it will insert this words looking like That will be where the image will be placed. Once you have made your post i suggest using Preview Post button just to check it all looks right before posting.:high5:
Thanks kitty i shall give it a go...i had to resize this picture.. my Great uncle is the Airman in the middle of the 1st picture.. the 2nd picture he is 3rd from the right (short person) the back of this photo has the following written on it "chic , pete , jeff , smithy , mac (my uncle) Belgium 1944 .. some of the names may be incorrect as i cant read the fancy writing
very nice, can you zoom in on them on your scanner at all? Increase the resolution to 200dpi and then zoom in, select the photo area then accept the scan.
