Finding Phil Smith

December 2, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

It was a very significant letter.

A single page of A4, written in a steady but flowing hand, it was this correspondence of November 1996 which turned a passing interest in Uncle Jack’s story into something much bigger. The letter was from Doug Wheeler, himself a former Bomber Command navigator and, at the time, the secretary of the NSW branch of the 463-467 RAAF Lancaster Squadrons Association. Doug lived a couple of towns from where I grew up. I’d done quite well earlier in the year in a national history competition with an entry based around what I knew then about Jack. Doug saw an article about my entry in the local paper and contacted me through my school.

It was, in fact, this letter which led us directly to the sole surviving member of the crew of Lancaster LM475.

“Squadron Leader D.P. Smith survived and evaded capture […] I have been in touch with him a couple of times in recent years. I am sure that if you wished to contact him at any point he would be happy to help.”

Happy to help, he was. We made contact and, early in 1997, visited the old pilot and his wife Mollie in Sydney:

Donald Philip Smeed Smith – better known as Phil – was an industrial chemist working in the sugar industry when he joined the RAAF in 1940. By November of that year he had made his first solo in a Tiger Moth at Tamworth. He arrived in the UK in July 1941 and flew the first operation of his tour in October of that year with 103 Squadron, Elsham Wolds. That tour was completed in June 1942 and Phil became an instructor pilot for a spell. In late 1943 he returned to operations via 1668 Conversion Unit at Syerston – which is where, as a Squadron Leader, he was joined by the rest of the crew that he would lead to 467 Squadron.

The Lille raid was Phil’s 51^st operational flight. Not even he could remember exactly what brought the aeroplane down. He simply found himself being ejected from the aircraft, by whatever means, and descended by parachute. After a short-lived attempt to walk to neutral territory in Spain, Phil was sheltered by a French family until the invasion forces caught up in September 1944.

Phil returned to Australia shortly thereafter. He was hospitalised in early 1945 with peritonitis. Mollie tells me that he was saved by a massive dose of penicillin. Phil wasn’t demobbed until late 1945, spending the remaining time of his five years in the Air Force as Commanding Officer of 88 Operational Base Unit, Bundaberg. He met and married Mollie after the war, had a family and returned to the sugar industry.

Phil Smith died in 2003. I remain in touch with Mollie who still lives in Sydney.

Receiving the letter from Doug Wheeler in 1996 and making contact with Phil Smith turned out to be a substantial factor in turning my interest in my great uncle into, well, Something Very Big. Here was someone who had actually known my great uncle Jack. Here was a living connection to the Man in the Photograph. In more recent years Mollie has allowed me to borrow and study Phil’s archive of letters and photographs, which has added immeasurably to my understanding of his experiences. I think this archive inspired me to start looking to see if there was anything else like it still out there, waiting to be found.

There have indeed been other collections like it that I have found. The search goes on for more.

This will be the last entry on SomethingVeryBig for 2010. The out-of-hours workload in the new job is significant, and I’ve discovered that I don’t at this stage have sufficient time to devote to properly researching and writing new posts. I’ve therefore decided to take a break from it for a month or so.

I should be back by mid January.

Adam

Into the Silence

November 26, 2010May 22, 2012 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 2 Comments

“Every day I wonder + cogitate about what really happened to the Lancaster on May 10/11. It’s such a peculiar happening – into the silence” (A01-113-001)

Writing to Don Smith in August 1944, Sydney Pate put into words what so many at the time and since have wondered. Just what was it that caused the loss of Lancaster LM475 over Lille?

When Phil Smith returned to England from occupied Europe a month or so after those words were written, Mr Pate could be forgiven for expecting that the only survivor of the crew might be able to shed some light on what really happened that May evening. But it was not to be. Phil’s first letter to his parents, written just five days after returning to England, reveals very little of the mystery (A01-033-002):

“All I can say about the accident is that I was extremely lucky to get away with it”

If anything, this brief account only served to further muddy the waters for Sydney Pate. He wrote to Don Smith in October 1944 (A01-094-001):

“I am struck by [Philip’s] use of the word ‘accident’, its precise application is still not clear to me… was it from enemy attack? Was it from internal misadventure? Was it from its own bomb load?”

Mr Pate put into words what is still puzzling, even today. When we first met Phil Smith in 1996 we asked him what he remembered. His answer?

Very little. Everything, he said, went hot, dry and red – and suddenly there was no aeroplane around him anymore. So he pulled his ripcord and parachuted to the ground.

Even the only man who survived the destruction of LM475 never knew for sure what caused his aircraft to crash. So what hope have we, 65 years later, of finding a definitive answer?

I’ll happily concede that, without wreckage to examine and without any known eyewitnesses, it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that I will ever be able to nail down a probable cause with any degree of certainty. But there is some written evidence that I can use to look at a number of theories. At this stage in my research I have not actually studied these closely. I am simply putting the theories out there so I can start thinking about them in more detail in the future.

The most obvious possible causes concern enemy action:

Shot down by flak
Attacked by a nightfighter

Other causes might be seen by today’s air crash investigators as ‘accidents’:

Collision with another aircraft
System failure eg engines
Structural failure through manufacturing or maintenance defect
Airframe icing in poor weather
Pilot or other crew error
Overstressing of airframe, causing structural failure
Controlled flight into terrain
Running out of fuel causing a crash

There could also be some other, more ‘out there’ scenarios:

Hit by a bomb dropped from above
Own bombs collided with each other after leaving aircraft and exploded

This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive list of all possible causes for the loss of LM475. I may even edit this post to add more if I think of any plausible ideas in the near future. Though there remains no physical evidence in existence – only a single propeller blade is left of the wreck of the actual aircraft – there is written evidence that lends support to some of these theories. I don’t think that enough evidence exists to be definitive, but I think it would be an interesting exercise to at least try and produce a plausible, probable cause.

Three Lancasters

November 18, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 4 Comments

For an Australian, seeing even one Lancaster is something of an achievement. There are only two in the entire country – and they’re separated by some 2000 miles. So while I was in the UK in June 2010, managing to visit no less than three in about four days was pretty special. They were all around London – R5868 ‘S-Sugar’ at Hendon, DV372 ‘Old Fred’ at the Imperial War Museum, and PA474 ‘City of Lincoln’ at Biggin Hill. Each one inspired some sort of feeling, but not entirely as one might have expected.

Old Fred is the least complete of the three. In fact, it’s only the front cockpit section – forward of the main spar – that sits in majestic splendour on the second level of the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth:

This is of course the Lancaster that was immortalised by navigator Arnold Easton’s book ‘We Flew Old Fred – The Fox’. It has a personal connection for me as well, appearing at least once in the logbook of S/Ldr DPS (Phil) Smith, who led my great uncle Jack’s 467 Sqn crew. Jack himself was not on this operation but the rest of the crew were. I’m told that, except for a great big sheet of perspex over the flight engineer’s panel, the cockpit appears more or less untouched from the way it looked at the end of the war.
There’s another great big sheet of perspex across the end that seals off the inside from the sweaty hands of the thousands of school children who were visiting at the same time that I was. It also, of course, carries out the same protective function against slightly emotional relatives of bomber aircrew… like me.

I was pressed up against the plastic for some time, gazing at a bucket seat that Phil Smith sat in… a navigator’s desk like those Jack Purcell worked at… the knobs on the radio sets that wireless op Dale Johnston fiddled with. Half the aeroplane is missing, but standing there looking forward it wasn’t hard to imagine the three of them, plus the hulking figure of Ken Tabor at the flight engineer’s station (without the perspex) and, beyond those yellow railings, right up the front in the big bulbous blister, bomb aimer Jerry Parker. The chatter of the schoolchildren became the drone of four Merlins as the Lancaster flew through the night. There was definitely a connection here.

S-Sugar is an aeroplane that should evoke similar feelings. It’s certainly an aeroplane that was on squadron at the same time that my great uncle and his crew were. In fact I can almost imagine their anticipation at the prospect of a party in the mess when Sugar approached its 100th operation. Sadly, they were not to enjoy any celebrations, being shot down the night before Sugar chalked up its ‘Ton’.

The first sight, once you enter the main aircraft halls at the RAF Museum at Hendon, is certainly impressive:

But as I approached the aeroplane I saw tape blocking off one side. The Museum was doing work to their Bomber Command exhibition and so half the hall was closed. I couldn’t even walk a full circuit around the Lancaster. One of my favourite things to do when in close proximity to a Lancaster is to just walk around it, looking up. I think it’s got something to do with realising how big the thing is.

But I couldn’t do that on this day.

I don’t know why, but Sugar just didn’t have the effect on me that I was expecting it to. I couldn’t walk all the way around the aeroplane. There was the sound of power tools over on the other side of the hall (the side that was closed off). There was the ‘beeping’ of a moving cherry picker. The atmosphere – that I think the Australian War Memorial has captured with their Striking by Night display using G-George in Canberra – just wasn’t there.
I realise that here was an aeroplane that was at Waddington when Jack’s crew were there – it was even on the same operation to Lille from which they failed to return. But I found nothing there. The collection of metal bits and pieces looked like a Lancaster but I detected none of the ‘something else’ that I found at Canberra. It just wasn’t there for me. S for Sugar was a bit disappointing.

One aeroplane that definitely still has that something special is PA474. Unique amongst those Lancasters that I’ve laid eyes on, this one still flies.
I spent three weeks on the Bomber Command trail in Lincolnshire last year. Despite chasing it half way across the county, I failed on that occasion to see City of Lincoln in the air.

There was no way it was going to beat me this time around!

I thought the Biggin Hill airshow would be a pretty safe bet. When I arrived – early in the morning – I could see the Lancaster in the distance, parked somewhat improbably behind an Me 109:

The anticipation began to build.

The airshow was fantastic. All sorts of aeroplanes that we just can’t see in Australia, displayed in professional and entertaining ways. The large crowd lapped it up.

In the afternoon, England was playing Germany in the game that would ultimately send the Poms home from the World Cup. The airshow organisers had thoughtfully provided a few very big video screens on which to show the match.

The Lancaster started up and taxied out shortly after kick-off.

And do you know what?

Every person on that airfield had their eyes glued to the old bomber. The football never stood a chance.

There is something about the sound of a Lancaster at take-off power. You can’t look away (even if a contentious refereeing decision just cost England any chance they might have had of reaching the next round). The aeroplane made several low, slow passes with the grace of a beautiful lady in her element, the Merlins purring as she swept past. That silhouette is unmistakeable.
The crowd’s attention was wandering back towards the football after the Lancaster made its final pass. I kept watching though, as it headed into the distance. The wings became stumps, then they disappeared altogether and the aeroplane became but a dot. I was still watching as the dot disappeared over the horizon, the throb of those engines finally fading away. A minute or two later I was still watching, still searching, but it was gone.

I’d travelled half-way across the world, and finally I’d managed to see a Lancaster in the air.

Satisfied, I turned my attention to the big screen to watch the rest of the match.

This post originally appeared on the Lancaster Archive Forum (http://lancaster-archive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2810&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=three+lancasters)

Bicycle

November 14, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

Another update from Steve:

The crew are gaining some definition. There is even the hint of a ‘flare chute’ inside the door to the Lancaster. The saucepan shape of the dispersal pan is beginning to take shape. And you’ll see that the bicycle has arrived, leaning against some oil drums.

The bike is an important part of the story. I have documentary evidence that at least Phil Smith and Gil Pate had bicycles that they acquired during their time at training units. The RAF bicycle was ubiquitous around airfields – used to get around the sprawling sites, where accommodation could be a couple of miles from the mess, the briefing room and of course the dispersals. A great pile of bicycles outside a pub in the nearby village was a sure sign that aircrew would be inside.

There’s a personal connection as well – a bicycle has been my primary mode of transport around Sydney for the last five or six years, and my bike has come to define me almost as much as my flying does. So I thought a bicycle would be a nice personal touch to make the painting ‘mine’.

It is now very close to completion – hopefully I’ll be able to pick up the finished painting when I drive to Sydney next weekend.

Objects

November 5, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell

”For me it is a strange emotional feeling to hold this knife considering where it has been and also the fact that it was a prized possession of my father when he was just 21 years old.”

-Clive Rattray, son of Lieutenant Kenneth Rattray, a Rat of Tobruk, on being handed his father’s wartime knife. From a story in the Sydney Morning Herald in October 2010 (link: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tobruk-knife-finds-way-home-20101016-16oat.html).

The knife in question had been lost for nearly 70 years. Lt Rattray carried it – a simple pocket knife, engraved with his name and his service history – through the Siege of Tobruk, then through Bougainville and to Darwin in 1943, when it disappeared. It turned up in, of all places, an English cinema some years later. It then disappeared again, before being found in an old suitcase in Kent in the house of the cinema’s former usher. The family of the usher was intrigued by the inscription on the knife and set about tracing its real owner – until, finally, just a few weeks ago, the knife was returned to Lt Rattray’s son.

It’s the story of the knife – seeing action in two major theatres of WWII, then its unlikely journey to England and its equally improbable return to Australia – that makes it so special. On its own, it’s ‘just another knife’, albeit one engraved with faint letters. But knowing its intriguing history somehow gives it extra meaning. It adds a human element to an otherwise unremarkable inanimate object.

I was reminded of this story when I visited the Powerhouse Museum’s Discovery Centre in Castle Hill in north-west Sydney for one of their recent monthly Open Days. I went along and enjoyed a tour of the warehouse – an esoteric collection of fantastic and fascinating objects covering Australia’s technological history.

Among the collections in the warehouse were a number of models of biplanes. They had been built, we were told by our guide, by a young man with a keen interest in aeronautics in the 1920s. The man later followed his dreams of flight, joined the RAF and flew fighters in WWII. He was shot down and disappeared over Crete. Many years later his son found some limited information about where his father was buried. He visited the island armed with only some bare facts – but he managed to find someone who was there when his father was shot down. Someone who, in fact, had sat with his father while he took his last breaths. It was a special moment for the son when the old man led him to the gravestone under which his father lay.

A very special story, then. Knowing the story of the man who built them gives the models something extra. It raises them above the wood, wire and fabric of which they were built. Like the Tobruk knife, they are otherwise ordinary objects that become representative of something more.

Incidentally, Steve Leadenham had a small stand in the main foyer at the Powerhouse and was displaying some of his work – which offered a chance to see the Lancaster painting in the flesh, so to speak. Steve was talking to a small group of people at his stand when I arrived back from the tour. The Lancaster was there too, on his easel. Underneath the canvas there was a small palette with smears of paint and a brush – evidently he had been doing a little ‘touch-up’ work. We talked for some time about the painting, the Lancaster and the men who flew it. Steve’s wife Glenda took a photo of Steve and I with the painting:

Encouragingly, Steve reported some good interest in the painting from some of the people who had wandered through. Some even asked about the possibility of getting a print of it. I was happy to hear that – it means that the story of B for Baker and her crew won’t be forgotten.

Seven Crew

October 30, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 4 Comments

Here’s Steve’s latest update on the Lancaster. You’ll see our missing seventh crewman has been painted in, sitting on a kitbag. Steve says that at this stage he looks like he’s searching for something on the ground. The kitbag gives him away – it must be the navigator, who could usually be recognised by the large bag of maps and instruments he had to carry to and from the aircraft. Other changes in this update include a bit more definition in the shadows on the aircraft and some grass that has appeared in the foreground. Click on the image to enlarge:

I’m not sure how that seventh crew member got there, his bicycle isn’t evident yet… but Steve tells me it’s coming!

This post was edited for clarity on 31 October 2010. Meanwhile, I’m now in Melbourne and, happily, I have internet access again. So, pending job commitments, posting on this blog should from now on be back to what passes for its usual schedule.

The Search for Eric Hill

October 23, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 2 Comments

In late November 1944, Gilbert Pate’s mother Kathleen received a telegram from the Royal Australian Air Force Casualties Department:

“FURTHER INFORMATION RECEIVED ADVISES THAT ONE AUSTRALIAN MEMBER OF YOUR SONS CREW WARRENT OFFICER R W PURCELL AND ONE ROYAL AIR FORCE MEMBER SERGEANT HILL ALSO LOST THEIR LIVES STOP THESE MEMBERS HAVE BEEN RECLASSIFIED MISSING BELIEVED KILLED” (A01-428-001)

It appears from this message that Jack Purcell and Eric Hill had both been identified and more or less confirmed dead at around the same time. But apart from the mention of his name on this and other similar telegrams, the Pates were told very little else about Sgt Hill.

When I first started this research, I also knew very little about the crew’s mid-upper gunner. Like Ken Tabor, Hill appears in the crew photograph:

His record at the Commonwealth War Graves tells us that his parents were Frederick and Fannie Rebecca Hill, and that they came from North Weald in Essex. A simple handwritten note in Gil Thew’s archive (A01-373-001) gave an address for Fred Hill, at 18 Bassett Gardens, North Weald. In September 1944 his address was Station House, Goring, Reading, Berkshire (A01-074-001). When I visited the British Library in July 2010 I was hoping to use this information to search for an electoral record and perhaps find names of further members of the family living at the same address.

Sadly this was one of the records that the Library was in the process of moving to another location when I visited, so a new angle was required. Enter Dave Franks with his Ancestry.com membership.

Dave is a family friend who lives in Nottingham and who is working on his own family history. I stayed with him and his family briefly on my last trip and we were able to spend a great night bouncing ideas off each other and searching through ancestry.com. We found a family tree which included Eric Hill, submitted by a man named Harry White. While only very distantly related to Eric, Harry when we contacted him was able to throw some light on the man and his family.

Eric Reginald Hill was, he told us, born in Goring on Thames, Oxfordshire on 7 June 1921. His parents were Frederick Hill, a GWR stationmaster – hence living in Station House – and Fannie Rebecca Noakes, both born in Reading in 1882. They married in the same town in 1904. Harry knew of five children:

Winifred Margaret born about 1905 in Reading
Marjorie Kathleen born about 1910 in Didcot
Rita Ellen Francis born 1911 in the Wellingford Registration District
George C born 1913 in Reading
Eric Reginald born 1921 in Goring

There is another address on Gil Thew’s piece of paper (A01-073-001). It appears to read as follows:

“C.J. Duncan, 6 Ulster Rd Gainsborough, Lincs England. Married daughter of Mr Hill”

None of the names from Harry White match those initials. This raises the possibility of either another daughter or, perhaps, I’ve misread a document somewhere.

At the time of writing this was all I had in the search for Eric Hill’s family. Possible avenues for further research from here could involve tracing any further children belonging to Eric’s siblings, chasing up the C J Duncan lead or even searching for a possible archive or other records belonging to the GWR.

I’m now in the middle of moving and so internet access may be a little intermittant for the next little while. Please bear with me, and hopefully normal service can resume shortly!

I hate moving.

October 16, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 1 Comment

I’m in the middle of moving house interstate… so everything’s all packed up and, mostly, in Mum and Dad’s garage. This morning I took down the B707 print from my wall… and so the flat is now looking rather depressing.

To cheer myself up, here’s the next update from Steve…

I’ve made some progress and a few revisions (see attached). I decided the vast expanse of concrete was all rather too much and have resorted to the same fudge used in so many “dispersal” paintings – mud and grass and tyre ruts leading into the picture. Still a lot to do there but you get the idea. The GPU is there with an attending erk but not quite at the plugging in stage – I need to suggest the lead though.

We have propellers! We have more Lancasters! We have an erk! We have a battery cart! We have (crucially) an entrance door into the aeroplane! We have… erm… (one, two, three, four, five, six) six crew!

Perhaps the seventh airman is pedalling furiously from the ops block on his bicycle…

Chipmunk

October 11, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 2 Comments

And now for something completely different. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of going for a flight in a de Havilland DHC-1 Chipmunk. I know it isn’t quite connected with the overall topic of this blog, but I had a great time and felt I had to share it… Normal service will resume shortly!

From the outside, it’s a very pretty-looking aeroplane. A narrow nose, with a single metal propeller. A single sliding canopy covering two seats. Beautifully shaped wings and the unmistakably de Havilland tail. It’s not a very big aeroplane, and it’s not particularly powerful, but it shaped a generation of British pilots in much the same way as its immediate predecessor, the famed Tiger Moth.

But inside the cockpit, underneath that narrow framed canopy, ‘pretty’ is not the word to describe the DHC-1 Chipmunk. The design dates back to the immediate post-war period in British aviation, and it shows. The concept of ergonomics simply hadn’t been invented yet and many of the controls are tucked into slightly bewildering places around the cockpit. The master switch is positioned on the sidewall, down near your left shin. Sticking out of the floor nearby is the brake lever – pull to activate, then push the appropriate rudder for something approximating differential braking. The mixture control is pulled aft to select fully rich – the exact opposite of more or less every other aeroplane ever built. The throttle lever has a little ball on top (helpfully marked with a “T” in the Tiger Moth fashion) and is mounted with the mixture lever on the left side of the cockpit. The flap lever, with a ratchet to keep it in place, is reached for with a nearly fully-extended right arm and pulled up like a really big handbrake. The designers did away with the need for a complicated mechanism to adjust seat height by simply bolting the seat firmly to the floor. If it’s too low for you, get some cushions. If it’s too high, bad luck!

Priming the engine on VH-AKB, the Chipmunk that I flew recently, is accomplished by the highly technical means of pouring a small amount of fuel into the carburettor intake (the original priming mechanism having long ago given up the ghost). Once settled into the cockpit, the start procedure feels like it needs four arms. You cradle the stick in the crook of your right elbow, while keeping pressure on the brake lever with your right hand. Your left hand cracks the throttle open, then moves across to the starter button which is positioned about as far away from the throttle as it physically can be, high up on the top right-hand corner of the instrument panel. Once the engine fires, that left hand needs to be quick to move to the throttle to ‘juggle’ it and catch the engine before it dies – otherwise you need to unstrap, climb out to reprime the engine, and try again.

Taxiing in this aeroplane is an exercise in coordination. Juggling the throttle and the brake lever with your left hand while holding the stick back with your right (as is essential in any taildragger), weaving down the taxiway to see past the nose and trying not to hit anything is quite difficult. Slow and steady is the answer. Hopefully you’ll manage not to bend the aeroplane before taking off.

But get the aeroplane in the air and all the niggles involved in its ground handling simply disappear. The controls are beautifully light – ailerons especially so. A standard turn requires very little control movement. Even an aileron roll can be flown with much less stick than I was expecting. Aerobatics are graceful in a Chipmunk. Sure, there are many more capable aerobatic aeroplanes out there. But not many have the combination of finely balanced ailerons, responsive elevators and sheer old-world charm that this one does. She loops, rolls, stalls, wings over and generally has a whale of a time. And that all-over canopy gives a beautiful view of the ground when you’re upside down.

Back to the airport, then, to see if modern-day spamcan pilots like me can land a Chipmunk. Like the Tiger Moth, this machine likes the ‘wheeler’ style of landing, with a trickle of power on, because the oleos soak up any excess sink rate on touchdown. The actual touchdown is relatively easy to judge. But the problems start once the aeroplane slows up and the tailwheel came down. The rudder is extremely light and it’s very easy to overcontrol, leading to some not particularly dignified swerving down the runway if you’re not careful. The second attempt – once you tell your feet to wake up on the rudder bars – is usually much neater. But slow down to taxi speed and once again you need to juggle that awkward but very British brake system to get back to the hangar. It’s almost like the aeroplane doesn’t want to stay on the ground, like it’s trying to convince you that up in the air is where it belongs.

One thing that Gypsy Majors like is oil. After some aerobatics, the engine bay of the Chipmunk certainly shows why:

Apparently that’s normal. Like all good vintage aero engines, if it stops dripping oil, it simply means it’s run out.

Despite her awkwardness on the ground, there’s no doubt that these aeroplanes have a certain ‘class’ that modern-day aircraft just don’t have. The heritage of the Chipmunk, stretching back to the Tiger Moth days, is certainly evident. Many pilots learnt to fly on aeroplanes just like this one in the 1950s and 1960s, and it’s great to try and capture some of that era of flying if you ever get the chance.

What Steve Did Next

October 5, 2010October 25, 2013 ~ Adam Purcell ~ 1 Comment

Oh ok then. Here is another update from Steve’s studio:

Some more progress for you. We probably need to start thinking about the guy working on the engine, the bike, etc. I’m still looking to include one or two distant Lancs dispersed around the airfield. Lots still to do, especially in the foreground.

The crew themselves are starting to appear, and the truck that brought them to the aeroplane is hanging around in the background. As for the erk working on an engine, I’m starting to think that a workstand might ‘clutter’ the scene a little too much, so I’m thinking of a few other options that will get him into the scene but not take over too much…

But looking good, no?