The Oakville Milton Flying Club

Letter to the Webmaster from Ken Harris (OMFC Member)

 

I am a new member of the club, and attended my first meeting last night.

You asked that if anyone had any photographs of interest, they should send

them to you. I hope this works, because I am no expert at sending

photographs this way, but am going to give it a try. If it doesn't work,

perhaps you would let me know and I will make prints and send them to you

by snail mail.

There are three photographs attached.  They are of a model Handley

Page Halifax, and were taken at Farnsfield, just outside Nottingham,

England on July 6th, 1994. The story is that there was the dedication that

day of a memorial to the crew of a Halifax bomber which had crashed on the

outskirts of the village on July 6th 1944. The pilot of the aircraft was my

wife's uncle, so we were invited to attend, and she and her sister laid a

wreath. The memorial was dedicated by Air Marshal Sir John Curtis, who had

been a member of 578 squadron himself.

There were not then ( and I think still are not) any airworthy Halifax

bombers, so the owners of the model in the pictures were invited to bring

their model from Liverpool and fly it as part of a fly past which was led

by a WW2 Dakota of the Battle of Britain Flight of the R.A.F. It looked

really impressive, and (as someone last night was saying about models seen

in another place) so realistic that as the plane flew over at about 200

feet, it looked and sounded like the real thing going over at 2000 feet. It

was a huge hit with the large crowd at the ceremony, and drew a lot of

applause.

Ken Harris