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Re: SFTS 1940
I would like to thank the contributors to this thread dating from 2012. In June this year, I turned up two threads while looking for the meaning of the 'S' in SFTS. What caught my eye on this particular thread was Observer1940's post about the shooting down of Whitley N1411 on 5 August 1940, 75 years ago today.
I already knew about the incident, for I had seen the entry in the ORB Appendices for No. 10 OTU at the National Archive, quoted above in post #6. My interest was in the Whitley's pilot, F/O A.J. Oettle, for I am writing a history of the early operations carried out by 419/1419 Flight and 138 Squadron. In September 1940 Jack Oettle joined No. 419 Flight, created specifically to insert agents into Nazi-occupied Europe by air, and to recover a few by Lysander. Jack Oettle carried out many of the early agent-dropping operations in 1940-41 before dying in a Whitley crash in October 1941.
Observer1940's post referred to the RAF Court of Inquiry (which I didn't know had survived - many have not), and it also mentioned the Hurricane's registration, R4118. This number leapt out at me, for it is Peter Vacher's immaculately-restored Hurricane, appearing at air displays around the country and currently up for sale. I immediately headed to the National Archives for verification before contacting Peter. He suggested I wrote an article, which has just been published. I would therefore like to thank 'Mark' (aka Observer1940) for his earlier research.
Nick Livingstone
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