Artful69 Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 A couple of weeks ago I was performing some Timber Pest Inspections to a series of units in a retirement village here. You meet a lot of very interesting people with interesting backgrounds and stories. I once met an elderly German chap who had an old DB A/C engine in his large workshop (it was a 1 acre block with a truck shed out the back) - turns out he used to be a field mechanic! On this occasion I had the pleasure of meeting one William (Bill) Utting ... a Lancaster pilot from 460 Squadron who completed 36 missions before wars end without loss of any of his crew. I asked him if he didn't mind me taking a few snaps of the pictures in his 'study' room to use as a reference for his 'bird' so I could build it when the HK Lancaster came out (hopefully later this year). Pic's below! The last one isn't his kite (D-Dog) ... he said he can't remember which Lanc it was - it might have been G-George (the one brought back to Aus and stashed in a museum over east. His wife, who was also quite chatty, was a WAAAF stationed at Pearse Air Base during the 1940's ... When I Looked up the Lanc online (via Google) I came up with some conflicting information. There's a story about the Maxton brothers who were both crew for D-Dog - one being the pilot ... So ... I delved into the records a little more ... There's a a photo of them both holding a picture of the "Pluto" artwork in later years ... so the artwork was on the A/C before Bill's crew had the Lanc ... The end result of the searching - Maxton's Crew flew 30 Op's in D-Dog ... and then Bill's crew took over the A/C to fly Op's during the period in the photo above. I'm going to have to find someone who can manufacture the Decals, I think!! Rog 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kkarlsen Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 Great story! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators JeroenPeters Posted June 12, 2017 Administrators Share Posted June 12, 2017 Very very cool... Now all we need is the kit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GusMac Posted June 12, 2017 Share Posted June 12, 2017 Nice Rog. A great bit of history. I'm only surprised looking at the list of sorties that the 'average' mission works out at roughly 6 hours. Looking at the list of destinations I would have thought it would be higher. Whatever, brave men and ever fewer left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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