Short Stirling lost in Greece

[apeiranthos]

I am searching about information for Short Stirling bomber aircrafts that lost in Greece or Adriatic sea in general. Untill now it wasn't possible to find not even one. Any help will be much appreciated.

[Larry]

Well I presume it was one operated from the UK and possibly an aircraft quite lost on Ops somewhere over the eastern Mediterranean. Stirlings had the range to attack Italian cities like Turin and continue on to North Africa as in the case of Aaron VC. However as far as I'm aware Stirlings were not based in North Africa at all or even in Italy post change of sides in 1943.

[kaki3152]

624 Squadron was based in the Middle East and used Stirlings. See the quote below from the Web.

o. 624 Squadron was formed by raising No. 1575 Flight RAF to squadron status at Blida in Algeria, North Africa at the end of September 1943. The squadron continued to carry out special duties operations formerly done by 1575 flight into Italy, Southern France, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. These operations included supply dropping and the insertion of agents to the resistance. For these duties the squadron operated at first with Lockheed Venturas and Handley Page Halifaxes, and later Short Stirling Mk.IVs. As a result of the allied advances in France and Italy, the need for 624 squadron in this role had declined and it was therefore disbanded on 5 September 1944.[2]

[Laurent Rizzotti]

There is a file with allied aircraft losses in special operation during WWII available on the Net:
http://www.harringtonmuseum.org.uk/w...Operations.pdf

Only three aircraft are listed to be lost in Greece: a Wellington in 1941 and two Halifaxes in 1943.

In MTO, 148 Sqn received only one Stirling for a short period, in August 1944, according to the book "The Heavy Bomber Offensive of WWII" by Martin Bowman. 624 had several but all losses in the above document for Stirlings are in or off Algeria.

Maybe you search the wrong type: giving more details on the reasons of your inquiries may help people here reply to you.

[apeiranthos]

Thanks for asking Laurent Rizzotti and thanks to all of you dear members for the respected informations.

We are a group of enthousiasts, researchers, divers that we are running in our own efforts http://aviationarchaeology.gr/ We are trying to find more on aircraft losses in WWII over Greece with the hope to learn more on their history, explore and locate some of them.
We are oftenly coming up with catalogues of losses in specific types of aircrafts and we are offering free access to anyone might be interested at http://aviationarchaeology.gr/?page_id=49.

So trying to find the historic profile of some scatered and exploded pieces of a wreck which founded few years ago in Northen Ionian Sea souteast of Corfu (Greece) we came up with the B17 Liberator "Wongo Wongo" 42-40563that we beleive it is the most possible identity of the a/c. http://aviationarchaeology.gr/?p=424
Parts that founded are for sure from a bomber a/c but difficult to give a good idea of the type of a/c because of an explosion at the time of crash.

I am asking as a fellow researcher as well as a member of this well known as respected forum "12oclockhigh"!.
Trying with "aviationarchaeologyGR" team to be more accurate on the id of the a/c we 'd like to exclude or include any other possible same size bomber a/c that lost in the area.

This is my main subject but if I had wrote that much from the begining I wasn't pretty sure if anybody would respond in thread because might look like an advertising.

[Pat Atkins]

Apologies, just found this thread and cannot add to it in terms of Stirling losses. I can shed a little light on Stirlings in the Mediterranean theatre though. My Uncle Don arrived at Blida to join 624 Sqdn as a sprog Stirling pilot, and flew one operation (CARACOLE) on 30/31 August 1944 t0 southern France; he and his crew were then transferred to 148 Sqdn at Brindisi and converted to Halifaxes for the rest of their operational flying.

In case this ever becomes useful to someone's research: in the month of August, 624 Sqdn ORB records operations by 17-19 Stirlings by serial number:

JP231
LJ953
LJ957
LJ969
LJ972
LJ973
LJ984
LJ987
LK172
LK175
LK177
LK178
LK179
LK181
LK182
LK184
LK938
LK978
LW272

I suspect that JP272 is a typo, it looks like a Halifax serial? LW272 is recorded in the ORB as a Halifax once, and a Stirling on another occasion - probably a typo.

148 Sqdn had one or two Stirlings on strength but I don't think they were ever used operationally and they were unpopular with the squadron which preferred the Halifax. In fact, the ORB for 13th December 1944 reads: 'One Stirling aircraft LK 176 left the squadron for Maison Blanche. No tears were shed over its departure for its loss is a gain for the squadron.'

Cheers, Pat.