87 Squ, Hurricane, Magister, Mourmelon, 1940, France

[Martin Gleeson]

Hallo Iain,

Could that not be another even more stripped down Hurricane behind '(A)K-L' in the hangar ?

The 218 Squadron Magister. A photo appeared on E-Bay, possibly in January 2008, of a force-landed Magister with the code 'C-HA' and the serial L5942 clearly visible. Unfortunately another great Ed West find that I did not save properly at the time. The good news is that it can be viewed on the LEMB website.

Now to muddy the water ! These seems to be no record of this Magister being lost with 218 Squadron in France. After 218 Sqn. was stood down following their dreadful losses by May 14th their remaining Battles were distributed to 103 Sqn. (2) and 150 Sqn. (3). I have read that 103 Sqn. received all of their aircraft and equipment, but this does not seem to be correct - see above.
However it is very possible that 103 Sqn. did receive the 218 Sqn. Magister (assuming there was only one) because 103 Sqn. had 16 flyable Battles and 2 flyable Magisters on June 14th. I cannot find any reference to the latter getting back to England.
Much of the above comes from The Battle File by Sidney Shail.
L5942 could have been lost with 103 Squadron but still wearing the 218 Sqn. codes. I am open to suggestions.

Mark.
The 73 Sqn. Magister in question was P6351 which force-landed on June 5th. (Source; The Battle of France; Then and Now).

Regards,

Martin Gleeson.