Tuesday, July 19, 2011

More about Giverny's Lancaster



One of my knowledgeable friends, Jean-Pierre Dubois, tells me that "this is one of the Lancasters overhauled and modified for anti-submarine warfare and maritime patrol
under a Western Union scheme and delivered to French Naval Aviation (Aéronautique navale) circa 1952"

Another piece of info that he forwarded is the following :

"The Lancaster was a Mark 1 LL864 "A4-H" which took off at 0027 from RAF Witchford, Cambridgeshire to destroy a communications target at Chevreuse. It was shot down by a night-fighter and crashed 150-200 metres of the Giverny
to Vernon road at Giverny where the crew are buried in the local churchyard..

This was one of six lost by 115 Squadron that night, all shot down by night-fighter, all making for the same target. Bomber Command overall lost 36-37 aircraft that night.

Bill Chorley, the acclaimed air historian, whose book "RAF Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War" Volume 5 (1944) this information is taken from, also adds a note:

'It was to Giverny that the celebrated French impressionist painter Claude Monet moved in 1883. Today, his famous garden is synonymous with his life and work, which many regard as the ultimate experience in this genre.'

And I have to say thank you to all the other anonymous contributors who have enriched this post and made this encounter of mine a very special one indeed.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Catalina Egan said...

So informative. Your followers may be interested in my book "The Bridge of Deaths".

"The Bridge of Deaths" is a love story and a mystery. Fictional characters travel through the world of past life regressions and information acquired from psychics as well as Archives and historical sources to solve “One of those mysteries that never get solved”. Based on true events and real people it is the culmination of 18 years of sifting through sources and finding a way to help the reader feel that he /she is also sifting through data and forming their own conclusions. The journey takes the reader to well known and little known events leading up to the Second World War, both in Europe and America. The journey also takes the reader to the possibility of finding oneself in this lifetime by exploring past lives.

Friday, 29 July, 2011  

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