[AUS_RAAF]

Tom and Russell,

Stening makes no mention of other claimants to the SM.82 in any of his documents. To me, it is looking likely the SM.82 claim was 7th April instead of 9th March and possibly the He111K claim was not Stenings’ and that of Plenderleith and Pawsey on the 3rd March instead of 17th March! It still does not explain the mysterious lack of detail in the logbook and diary. As mentioned previously, both the listing of claims were marked in blue ink in his logbook, so too his last mission when shot down and becoming a POW. The latter must have been added either by another member of 253 or by Stening after the war, so maybe the claims as well?

For what it is worth these are the details for 7th April 1944

Diary:
“Not much doing in the morning. Flew “Leith”* in the afternoon as escort to 24 Marauders bombing bridges at Incisa. Very good bombing but no excitement. Made quite a good landing.”

Logbook:
Spitfire V, SW-L – Escort to 24 B26s to Incisa – 1.30 hrs – Bombed Bridges

So another enigma. The date and times align with the afternoon mission but there is absolutely no reference to encountering an enemy aircraft!

*Stening referred to aircraft coded ‘R’ as Ruth and ‘L’ as Leith. These were in reference to his wife and son. I do not think the aircraft had artwork applied. He first flew SW-L/EF750 on 2nd April as noted in the diary - “Flew ‘Leith’ today for the first time.”

It would be interesting to access the logbooks of other supposed 253 Squadron pilots involved, but this may be a hard task!

Regards, Drew

PS: Russell – am looking forward to MAW Vol 4! Let me know if any assistance needed from the Australian side of things.