Curtis Kittyhawk Mk IA ET574

[Larry]

We have all read about the 260 Sqn Kittyhawk ET574, that was found in the Egyptian desert in 2012 , which got lost on a ferry flight to 53 RSU in June 1942.

I have read that Flt Sgt Dennis Copping was escorted by another 260 Sqn Kittyhawk, but has anyone found who that other pilot and aircraft serial number that might have been?

Is there any info on the matter in the 260 Sqn Form 540 Operations Record Book?

[dp_burke]

Nothing apparent in the ORB for that month, I didnt check previous months but he might have been posted out of the Squadron at the time on temporary ferrying duties perhaps.

You could try get your hands on
AIR81/15849
Flight Sergeant D C H Copping: missing believed killed; Kittyhawk ET 574, 260 Squadron, aircraft lost during non operational day flight, between landing ground 09 and landing ground 86, Egypt, 28 June 1942.

And you can apply for his service record via this link:
https://www.apply-deceased-military-...rvice.gov.uk/#
year of birth is 1917

[dp_burke]

https://www.key.aero/forum/historic-...page6=&page=36

Flight Sergeant W.L. ‘Shep’ Sheppard

[Larry]

Thanks all for your replies.

BTW - Flt Sgt Dennis Copping is I believe still missing, but about October 2012, I seeem to have read in the Daily Mail that someone found about 3 miles from the crash landing site, some bones and a bit of parachute and a 1939 dated RAF button that might indicate Dennis Copping died after walking from his aircraft. At the time it was suggested that the bones lying in the desert could be recovered and DNA samples taken. Were they found and has their been any further developments?

Kind regards

Larry

[Larry]

Thanks all for your replies.

BTW - Flt Sgt Dennis Copping is I believe still missing, but about October 2012, I seeem to have read in the Daily Mail that someone found about 3 miles from the crash landing site, some bones and a bit of parachute and a 1939 dated RAF button that might indicate Dennis Copping died after walking from his aircraft. At the time it was suggested that the bones lying in the desert could be recovered and DNA samples taken. Were they found and has their been any further developments?

Kind regards

Larry

[RSwank]

There were some developments regarding the DNA results discussed here:

https://www.key.aero/forum/historic-...or-help?page=0

[Larry]

After ET574 was located, the RAF Museum showed interest in returning ET574 to the UK and displaying it ‘as found’. However, like most things, it wasn’t always that straight forward and even worse, it involved the giving away of a Supermarine Spitfire to Egypt.

As reported in The Telegraph in 2015: A valuable Spitfire has been lost to the nation after an “ill-conceived” deal by the RAF Museum to exchange it for the recovery of another aircraft that it is unlikely to ever receive, it has been revealed. Museum bosses “paid” a salvage team an original Spitfire from their collection to retrieve a WW2 RAF Kittyhawk P-40 plane that was found intact (sic) in the Sahara Desert 70 years after it crashed. But three years on and the museum, of which Prince Phillip was a patron, has conceded they may have lost the Spitfire with nothing to show for it after the political unrest in Egypt stalled negotiations to bring the Kittyhawk back to Britain. They tasked a private salvage company with going to Egypt and saving the plane from souvenir hunters in the summer of 2012.

The RAF Museum handed over the Spitfire, one of 110 (at the time) remaining in Britain and that had been donated by the Ministry of Defence in 1998, and then to Kennet Aviation as payment for the operation. A team from Essex-based Kennet were given permission to salvage the Kittyhawk aircraft and secure it in a shipping container which was then taken to a site at El Alamein (to be loaded for shipment)

Since then, nothing, so is the Spitfire’s now? What was its serial number?

I appreciate the country was gripped by political turmoil at the time and the Kittyhawk was not high on the Egyptian government’s agenda. Even though it was restored and retained in Egypt, so where is our Spitfire?

[Larry]

What Supermarine Spitfire was given away, in the hope of getting the Curtis Kittyhawk Mk Ia ET574 from Egypt in circa 2015?

[dp_burke]

Spitfire F22, PK664

Lots and lots on internet about it, some mking more sensible conclusions about it than others perhaps.

[Larry]

Presumably if Spifire PK664 either left the country and was returned, or never actually left and its with Kennet Aviation, instorage, it still belongs to the RAFM?