[Smith]

Many thanks Adriano ... just a quick reply, it's a beautiful Autumn Sunday morning here and we're going out to enjoy it.

Mark Simpson also made the observation re. the burial. They were re-interred in Poland after the war's end. At the time they (actually 3 heads and one hand, all the bits that were found!) were buried in the local military cemetery at Swinemunde - as I suspect others from this raid were.

One thing I have learned over time is that Lancasters were a death trap. Night fighters would hit them in the fuel tanks between the engines and the resultant blaze would literally melt the skin of the wing. The aircraft would fly for up to as much as a minute (sometimes the effect was more immediate, eg. control cables severed or severe damage of some form) and then roll and dive as the wing gave up. This particular aircraft (EE147) was seen to dive vertically into the ground. At an accelerating dive up to say 200km/h (vertical) the fall from 1500/2000 metres would have taken 30-45 seconds.

And I do have Middlebrook's book now (on loan from the library) and it does have a picture of the course track. But it's not necessarily to scale or reliable enough in my opinion.

It's interesting your point re. EE-147 being last up. Do you have such a timing and list? That would be valuable as there is a quote in Middlebrook's book about a combat another 619 aircraft had over the target. The likely German counterpart is known for that one. It may be that EE-147 arrived on the scene after that!

In fact I wonder - is it possible to obtain and read debriefing reports of RAF squadrons? And nachtjagd combat reports?

Many thanks, regards Don