No. 234 (Madras Presidency) Squadron

[atckyrre]

Originally Posted by SteveB

Kyrre

4 May 1945 was a very bad day for Mustang pilots and so close to the peace! 19 Sqdn lost two pilots F/Lt 'Jock' Davidson and P/Off 'Baz' Natta both killed in a mid-air collision over Denmark on the escort for Banff Strike Wing. And of course Arne Austeen was killed with 126Sqdn over Flensberger Fjord.

P/Off P J W Bell did not escape with bruising. He reported that his aircraft was "riddled by bullets" and he was hit in the arm by an incendiary bullet. He was still in hospital on 1 June 1945.

I am interested that you have KH860 as AZ*A I have it as AZ*G.

Best wishes from Blighty

Steve

Many thanks for the information. I'm very keen on anything that's got to do with Coastal Command operating in Nordic waters and it is just recently I found out that 234 sqn actually joined CC in the final days of the war. Being an avid modeller I like to build anything Allied that took part in the ops and in this case Bell's Mustang might fall right in with a crashed Mustang diorama I'm doing. I suspect that KH860 was a silver bird and not camouflaged, with black lettering, though I still haven't seen anything but a profile of a 234 sqn Mustang. My information came from Andy Bird's A Separate Little War where he gives the crashed Mustang the letter "A" while at the loss list in the back the serial is quoted as KH860. Since I don't have the original documents I can't verify Andy's statement which leaves me wondering which letter is correct.

Kyrre