From an Irish bog, a Spitfire with a tale to tell
michael posner Thursday's Globe and Mail Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2011
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One morning last January, amateur aviation historian Jonny McNee embarked on what he suspected was a doomed mission: to find the wreckage of a Second World War Royal Air Force Spitfire that had crashed in the peat bogs of County Donegal in northwest Ireland in November, 1941.
For two decades, other historians had sought it – in vain.
“We weren’t terribly hopeful,” said Mr. McNee, in Toronto to attend the launch of Maple Leaf Empire – Canada, Britain, and Two World Wars, a book that chronicles the Spitfire story. “I’d say we were optimistically downbeat.”
Amazingly, five minutes after he stopped to seek information from knowledgeable locals, he found a man who knew the precise location of the crash.
In June, Mr. McNee, 43, and a team of aviation archaeologists from Queen’s University in Belfast returned to the site to excavate.
Buried nine metres down in the Glenshinney bog, near Moneydarragh, they found the plane’s remains – in pieces, but otherwise, he says, “remarkably well preserved.”
Among their finds: six Browning .303 machine guns (still in working order), about 700 rounds of ammunition, and the leather flying helmet won by its daredevil American pilot, 23-year-old Roland (Bud) Wolfe.
And stencilled in two-inch, sea-grey letters on the side of the cockpit were the words: Garfield Weston No. 1.
The single-seat fighter was the first of eight Spitfires that Mr. Weston, a Canadian businessman and British MP then living in London, had purchased for the RAF at a cost of $450,000 – the equivalent of many millions in today’s money.
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michael posner Thursday's Globe and Mail Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2011
Article Link
One morning last January, amateur aviation historian Jonny McNee embarked on what he suspected was a doomed mission: to find the wreckage of a Second World War Royal Air Force Spitfire that had crashed in the peat bogs of County Donegal in northwest Ireland in November, 1941.
For two decades, other historians had sought it – in vain.
“We weren’t terribly hopeful,” said Mr. McNee, in Toronto to attend the launch of Maple Leaf Empire – Canada, Britain, and Two World Wars, a book that chronicles the Spitfire story. “I’d say we were optimistically downbeat.”
Amazingly, five minutes after he stopped to seek information from knowledgeable locals, he found a man who knew the precise location of the crash.
In June, Mr. McNee, 43, and a team of aviation archaeologists from Queen’s University in Belfast returned to the site to excavate.
Buried nine metres down in the Glenshinney bog, near Moneydarragh, they found the plane’s remains – in pieces, but otherwise, he says, “remarkably well preserved.”
Among their finds: six Browning .303 machine guns (still in working order), about 700 rounds of ammunition, and the leather flying helmet won by its daredevil American pilot, 23-year-old Roland (Bud) Wolfe.
And stencilled in two-inch, sea-grey letters on the side of the cockpit were the words: Garfield Weston No. 1.
The single-seat fighter was the first of eight Spitfires that Mr. Weston, a Canadian businessman and British MP then living in London, had purchased for the RAF at a cost of $450,000 – the equivalent of many millions in today’s money.
More on link
