Hi Ellen, Do we know which of the three scenes in your Dad's footage he is referring to here? Thanks, Pat
Hi Pat, It is the third scene. I just rewatched Dad’s 1995 interview with the RCAF Memorial Museum in Trenton, Ontario. In it Charlie states: “returning from a ground mission; again alone...don’t know why”. He then goes on to describe his encounter with the “large German limousine”...”directly ahead of him”. Ellen
Thanks Ellen, I think we are nearly home!...I have a very good candidate for the last of the three scenes from your Dad's footage First though I want to show readers how the new tactic of going after other pilots' locations for the afternoon patrol paid off. Below are two stills from F/O Ireland's second attack footage: The house at upper left has a very distinctive avenue and garden path to the front and a lean-to at the rear. I happened on the location today, near the small hamlet of Ammeville, at about the midpoint of 5½ miles equidistant from Boissey and the T Junction on the Trun road at Mandeville. Below is the location circled in yellow: The Google Maps link to the location is here. IGN cover flown in 1947 and again in 1971 clearly shows the garden path and avenue layout: The small window in the lean-to's western gable has been enlarged and the chimney in the gable of the main roof has been replaced by another feature as seen below behind the satellite dish: I have no doubt though that its the same house as seen today on Google street view: Now, if I wore a hat I would have to eat it...the first attack by F/Lt. Trainor, being the last remaining location of the three attack sequences to be found, is not on a curved railway embankment as I first thought! More follows... Regards, Pat
I am now convinced... The attack on the 'curved railway embankment' actually took place on the western side of this bend on the D39 road about a mile east of the village of Le Grand Couliboeuf. Working on some screenshots from post war IGN cover to make my case... In the meantime, if anyone can access the IGN archive, I would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, Pat
Three stills from the attack of F/Lt. Trainor... ...and another attack on the same target by F.O. Lindquist, but this time with more of the western approaches in view:
NCAP cover is available...distant but 'doable' The new partnership between NCAP and NARA to scan and digitise USAAF reconnaissance photos held by the latter organisation is delivering for us here. I have been able to see the curve in three of the five oblique starboard side photos here; namely S_0042, S_0043 and S_0044, sortie US7/1761 flown on the 6th June. Unfortunately there is a lot of degrading of image quality present due to poor exposure but I worked on zoomed extracts in Photoshop last night and I like what I see, albeit a very distant view of the clump of brush on the outside of the curve. Unfortunately I don't have a licence from NCAP to reproduce the resulting extracts here, but additionally the field crop lines tie in very nicely with the gun camera footage from both pilots. More to come on this... Regards, Pat
Good work again Pat. Looks very promising. Glad you abandoned the railway angle. I've never been convinced of that, but I do regret not stating that more clearly. Hope you did not waste too much time chasing railroads. ;-)
I dread to think Niels how many miles of track I'll looked at The IGN site though is a great resource wherein you can layer the 1947 cover over present day mapping, drop the opacity of the top layer to about 70% or so to see location names underneath and then scroll the screen at a high rate of speed. The partly macadamed surface of the D39 visible in F/O Ireland's 2nd attack scene at Ammeville first raised my suspicions about the 'railway embankment' as the same feature can be seen therein. It is of course the same road on the same day! Regards, Pat
Seeking possibly related gun camera footage... Somewhere out there in cyber space is footage of a strafing attack on road targets, which IIRC, shows the same single pass layer of tar macadam on a somewhat wider road. The two un-tared portions show up as two light tones running along both verges. If anyone comes across it, I would appreciate a link. Also, I have discovered when looking at the footage of F/Lt. Johnson, another pilot on the 16:30 patrol, that he also is attacking trucks on the D39 just before the house near Ammeville. I need to do some work on the stills in Photoshop to be sure, but I can almost certainly see the house and the curving field in which it sits. The view is wider than that of F/O Ireland's footage in post #203 above which should bring some extra hedgerows into play for a more solid tie to this location - once Photoshop has done its magic. Results to follow... Regards, Pat
F/Lt. Johnson's attack at the house near Ammeville, Lets take a wider view of this site as seen on IGN cover flown in 1947: Note the reference tie points hedgerow T junction (A), midpoint of curving hedgerow (B), two or three isolated bushes on the northern side of the D39 road (C), isolated apple trees in field on south side of D39 (D) and the angled hedgerow (E). As can be seen in this first still from F/Lt. Johnson's footage, he has opened fire on the trucks from a longer range than that of F/O Ireland's attack in post #203 above. This conveniently gives us an easier task in confirming the location without any lingering doubt: Despite the under exposed still #1, I have no doubt as to the validity of the ties A-E inclusive. Note how it appears to have been F/Lt. Johnson who attacked first, presuming the trucks are traveling eastward, as the lead truck has not reached the house as it had done when F/O Ireland made his attack. So, to date we have seven attacks from four 411 Squadron pilots on the 1600hrs patrol tagged to five different locations: F/Lt. Trainor (Spitfire MK 423): D39 near Le Grand Couliboeuf, T Junction on D13 near Mandeville and D4 in Boissey F/Lt. Johnson (Spitfire MJ 474): D39 near Ammeville F/O Ireland (Spitfire MJ 536): D579 4 miles north of Lisieux and D39 near Ammeville F/O Lindquist (Spitfire NH 240): D39 near Le Grand Couliboeuf According to this page on the Craigavon Historical Society site, Spitfire MK 423 was destroyed in a crash which killed Sq/Ldr Robert 'Paddy' Wilkinson-Turkington of 601 Squadron on 29th July 1945 in Italy. This aircraft had quite a few owners. including No.s 1, 317, 331 and 411 Squadrons MJ 474 was with No.132 Squadron before it came to 411 Squadron. MJ 536 appears to have commenced its operational life with 411 Squadron, arriving onto their books on the 29th June 1944. NH 240 arrived to 411 Squadron a few days earlier on the 22nd June The All Spitfire Pilots site has data on all four aircraft. Click the links above to view them. The 1600hrs 'Armed Recce' comprised 12 aircraft in all, so a full squadron effort. I'll expand this thread to explore more of Charlie Trainor,s time in Normandy. Regards, Pat
Pat, Many thanks to you and the Whitebeam Team for the diligence and precision applied to your research. The Trainor family appreciates the continued interest in our father’s war story and are so very pleased “Charlie’s Church” found a home with you. My first post was 3 years ago, Jan 11, 2015. In record time you uncovered the little church in Boissey and then; continued to research the other two attacks on the gun camera footage. You ARE like a Canadian Mountie: you never give up! Now, I have 3 places to explore on my Normandy visit this spring- thank-you! Our father would have followed all your threads with great interest; you would enjoy his “colour commentary”. The Trainors look forward to offering our support whenever we can. Best regards, Ellen
Many thanks Ellen, Now that the three gun camera scenes have been located, I feel free to concentrate on the wider story of your Dad's time in Normandy. Working on some aerial footage which possibly might be from a 'Mossie' overflying 411's base at ALG B-4 Bény-sur-Mer. More to follow... Pat
Gentlemen, In a few weeks I will be retracing my father’s flying activities in the environs of Le Grande Couliboeuf, Mandeville and Boissey. Thank you Whitebeam! Beyond taking pictures, chatting with the locals, museum searches; do you have other suggestions to augment the data already collected? Is there something else I could explore for Whitebeam while I am “nearby”? Best regards, Ellen
Hi Ellen, Can we hire you as a PR consultant for the Forum? Half joking of course but half serious also - it would be great if you could demonstrate the work we do here on Whitebeam to those you meet in Normandy. I think people in Normandy are generally receptive to requests for help if they know those who are asking are genuine and don't have a spade and metal detector in the boot/trunk of the car. That's the hurdle we need to get over in order to be on the inside track. Anything you can do to assist in this regard would be very much appreciated. Please feel free to print off any images on the Forum, either in this thread or others which you feel might be of interest to those you come across in Normandy. Photos and accounts of your travels are of course also highly prized here! Enjoy the trip Ellen. Regards, Pat
Hi Pat, Best behaviour assured.I am proud to showcase Whitebeam’s work to any and all. Just wish I could extend a month to sojourn with you in June. Best regards, Ellen
Greetings all, A recent Charlie's Church visitation in Boissey but we only could see from the outside. The Church is now solely used for weddings and funerals. The church key is housed in the maire in the next town; closed for one of the many May holidays in France. A local francophone we “accosted” very kindly brought us to the home of a lovely English couple now living in Boissey. All three were intrigued with the story of a close encounter between spitfire and steeple...”perhaps that’s why the steeple is a tad crooked”. Indeed the steeple seems “off” a bit! The church itself is ever so small-no wonder dad did not see it till the last moment.I have included a photo of the church from behind, showing the (?) crooked steeple. Another photo shows the distinctive farmhouse/ barn clearly evident in the gun camera footage. Remarkable how little has changed over the years. The attached video pans from the corner where the car entered the ditch through approx 160 degrees to the barely visible church steeple. I introduced the Whitebeam site to this couple who have since printed a photo of the Boissey main street/farmhouse. They will share with some of the locals who may have Boissey stories/ photos from the summer of 1944. Best regards, Ellen PS: sending farmhouse/ barn photo and video in following post.
Hi Ellen, I edited and did the work for you, but here is what I did... What I do to reduce the size of a file is I right click on the photo and open with in "paint"... Then I go to the home tab of paint and click on the "resize"... I then choose something that will reduce the width on the photo to about 850 to 900mp's. In this case that was about 55% . Both vertical and horizontal seem to adjust together... I then re-save a new copy of the new photo, that way you still keep the file size of your original, but now have one available for posting. I hope this helps and I look forward to your other posts! John p.s. Video I am unsure about...
Hi Ellen, When I get home this evening I'll send you on the login details for my ADrive cloud account. You can then upload to there and I'll create a link to the video. Great work spreading the faith in Boissey Regards, Pat