|
Flight Engineers Log
I have found some papers belonging to F/Sgt Pottage. G.L. At Xmas 1943 he was at 10SFTS in Canada and attended his wings parade in 1944. I also have his copy of Flight Engineer’s Notes for Lancaster Aircraft issued to him on 14th May 1945 so it looks like he was retrained as a flight engineer at some point. The thing that is confusing is copy of a Flight Engineer’s log dated 19-20/4/45. The target and sqn are not filled in but the other details are:
Captain W/O Godelman F/Engineer Sgt Pottage
Bomb load 12000Ibs Total Fuel 1166 gls
Aircraft Type Lancaster MkIII A/C No LL781 Letter L
Take off 2215 Set Course 2230 Touch Down 0155
Time Airborne 3.40 Time On Course 3.20
Fuel used 744 gls
From 2220 until 2345 he records IAS as 139 kts and from 0025 until 0125 IAS as 174 kts and altitude as 10000ft.
The puzzle is, as far as I can find Lancaster LL781 was a MkI (not a MkIII )of 15 Sqn lost in June 1944 (10 months before this flight)
I can only find details of 2 raids on that date a 3 Group raid on Munich and a daylight raid by 617 and 9 Sqns on Helgoland. Munich seems unlikely with a flight time of 3.40 and at only 10000ft over Germany (even at that stage of the war) does not make sense. 9 Sqn ORB shows the take off times for the Helgoland raid as late afternoon, which does not match with the take off time of 2215 in the log.
Could this log show a training flight (But why the incorrect A/c No) or be a ground based paper exercise for U/T Flight Engineers?. If its real, what Sqn did Sgt (later F/Sgt) Pottage serve on.
|