WW2 Memorabilia

 Here  are a few shots of Luftwaffe associated memorabilia that are owned by a friend of mine .

Above can be seen two examples of the very rare Butterfly bomb .The action of releasing them from the aircraft set a chain of events in motion . The 'wings' of the bomb deployed causing drag and the bomb would begin to spin downwards relitively slowly to earth ...the spinning motion armed the bomb . It could be set to go off either on impact or by timer .  A small bomb that was released in clusters .

Below is a Heeres-Flakabzeichen awarded to Flak crews for shooting down Allied aircraft !

These were awarded on a points system . 16 points being the requisite number required for getting one . 4 were awarded for a crew who shot down an allied aircraft (2 for a shared kill) and points and badges  could also be awarded individually  for bravery in the act of trying to shoot down aircraft  !

German incendaries . These rained down upon British cities in their thousands

a selection of WW2 german gas masks , one of which is from a flak crew

Meteor WD778

Gloster Meteor WD778

 

A meteor similar to the one that crashed

On the 24th March 1954 this aircraft flying out of RAF Leeming crashed into a plateau just beneath the summit of Knock Fell    in Cumbria .  

The crew were known to be on their way back to Leeming . The last radio contact with them occured whilst they were only 5 miles from the airfield . Low cloud obscured the ground and the pilot was instructed to use the Ground Controlled Approach frequency to enable a safe landing .

Nothing  further was seen or heard  of the aircraft until 5 days later when it was discovered by a local gamekeeper . 

It seems that for some reason the radio must have ceased to function properly , the crew must have become disorientated in the cloud and ended up flying too far to the  west , perhaps realisng the mistake they set an easterly course unfortunately hitting the flanks of the pennine hill which lay between them and the base .

Both the 21yearold  crewmen were killed in the crash . 

They were 

P/O John David Briggs  Pilot

F/O  Derrick Walker  Nav/ R.Op.

An overview of the site

A sad footnote to the visit is that some major items have recently been stolen from the site . There are pictures readily available on the internet that show a huge wing section and two whole fan blade hub complete with blades from the engine were there in June 2013 but now in November have gone . 

Due to very clear tracks  it was clear that a large  ATV  had recently visited the site , perhaps this was the method of wreckage removal too .

The site is reletively easy to visit , the Pennine Way passes close by and a metalled road leading up to a radar installation is only just on the other side of the hill.