Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Group of historians from the Museum of Warsaw's Rising is about to end digging up Handley Page Halifax Mk. II number JP-276A, which was shoot down on 4 VIII 1944 near Tarnow. It was transport version, and plane was flying from Campo Casale (southern Italy) to drop a supply pods near Skierniewice (central Poland).
The wreck is in quite bad condition, but specialists are willing to fix it and place in Warsaw's Rising Museum.

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Mostly newspapers wrote about this, and this is the best site about this. I suppose, that there will be some photos soon.
http://www.odkrywca.pl/pokaz_watek.php?id=376360

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Thx for the interesting info!

Alessandro :wave:

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Handley Page Halifax JP-276 "A"
FS-A
148. Sqn RAF
Crew: Arnold Blynn, George A. Chapman, Harold L. Brown, C. B. Wylie, Arthur G. W. Liddell, Frederick G. Wenham und Kenneth J. Ashmore
all KIA (5 Canada, 2 Britain)
Probably Hptm August Fischer, 3./NJG 100 shot down the plane.
Here you can find some pictures:
http://www.tarnow.pl/galeria/galeria_924/index.php

Gruß
pilot05

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

You can find several interesting photos of the excavation of Halifax JP 276 if you do the following:

- Google exact phrase "Dabrowa Tarnowska" then put in Halifax in space above
- look down the list to about the fifth title - 'Biuletyn Informacji Publicznej'
- click on here and you will find Polish website.
- just click on the Halifax photo, date of article is 29 November 2006 title is "Relacja konferencji"
The photos make up for not understanding the Polish language however I hope someone will be able to translate.
Frances

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

http://www.wrotamalopolski.pl/root_B...cjaPrasowa.htm

Thats the www-site, thanks for the information.

In the article there is told about the history of this Halifax, the mission, the found pieces of the plane, and the human remains, which were found. In Warshaw they will make a DNA - test to identificate the bones.

Pozdrawiam
pilot05

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Many thanks for posting www site - my directions would have been difficult to follow.

It will be difficult for the Uprising Museum to reconstruct the Halifax from those terribly damaged parts found at the excavation site. Does anyone know if other Halifax parts will be used?

Frances

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Frances, I do not know what an idiot get to the idea to reconstruct a Halifax from such mortal remains and definetelly there is not enough Halifax parts in Poland to undertake such attempt.

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Franek - what is the motivation to return to this crash site, is it possible there were missing crew members? Families of this crew have been contacted in the past and ceremonies undertaken.

Frances

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

Frances
I believe they wanted to make a spectacular dig, I doubt they believed they can find any substantial remains. The bodies remains, I believe, are just fragments not recovered during the war.
Best wishes

Re: Halifax found near Tarnow
 

There is one very interesting detail over there. The crew was armed with the US revolvers, not Commonwealth-made. If I am not mistaken not so popular in the armed forces S&W .38 Victory Special revolvers can be seen with 5'' barrel. They were really unique in the US Army during WWII, not to mention the Commonwealth armies. :shock:

It is very interesting.

Best regards

E.