We are delighted to feature another guest post from David Coxon, Honorary Vice President of Tangmere Military Aviation Museum.
David writes:
In October 1959 ex-Halton Apprentice John Nelson was posted from RAF Germany to Thorney Island. Two years later he, with his flight line crew, was detached to RAF Tangmere due to resurfacing work being carried out on the Thorney runways.
On Easter Saturday John, in charge of the duty crew, received a telephone call from the Control Tower advising him to expect during the afternoon three B-17 Flying Fortresses who were landing to refuel. John questioned the type of aircraft and was assured B-17 type was correct. He then contacted the No 22 Search and Rescue Squadron detachment of the airfield who confirmed they had the Avgas fuel required. Early in the afternoon, John received another call from the tower advising that only two B-17s would be arriving, the third having enough fuel to make it to its base.
The two Second World Bombers duly arrived and were first heard and then seen in the circuit and on landing were marshalled by John’s duty crew to their parking stands at dispersal. To the crew’s surprise, the aircraft had doors hanging off, windscreens missing, damaged fuselages and panels missing. The aircraft appeared to be bristling with guns which were found on closer inspection to be broom handles with black spots painted on to make look like Browning machine guns.
The Captain of the first aircraft, embarked and greeted John with, “Hello General”. John explained that he had not yet reached such a dizzy height but was asked where the B-17 crew could get some food and drink as they were hungry and frozen, having flown with their windscreen missing. On being asked where they had been flying, the B-17 skipper replied, “On a bombing run in Germany”. John’s replied that they were a bit late as the war has been over for sixteen years! It turned out that they had been filming the 1962 war film ‘The War Lover’, directed bt Philip Leacock, loosely based a novel by John Hersey and starring Steve McQueen, Robert Wagner and Shirley Ann Field.
John’s team ferried the American aircrew to the small café just outside the perimeter and then set about refuelling the two bombers with the help of the bowser crew from No 22 Squadron. They all then took the opportunity to look inside the aircraft. There was a single walkway along the centre of the fuselage on which were mounted seven cameras, half facing port and half starboard. On the outside of the fuselage false skins had be riveted on with the middle torn outwards to represent flak damage quite realistic.
The American aircrew, having been fed and watered, later boarded their aircraft, taxied out and departed.
Later the same month John observed another American aircraft approaching Tangmere; an American Air Force F-101 Voodoo jet fighter. It had joined the circuit in the wrong direction and the pilot had made a ‘Mayday’ call to the Control Tower, advising that the aircraft was short of fuel and requesting an immediate landing. He was given by the tower an immediate clearance to land.
As the Voodoo was crossing the runway threshold and still airborne, the brake parachute was seen to be deployed; the aircraft was then seen to drop like a brick onto the runway and to break its undercarriage. One of the undercarriage legs and a wheel were later found four hundred feet away from the crash site. Fortunately, the American pilot was uninjured and later that day a USAF recovery team arrived and disarmed the aircraft. They decided to check the fuel state and to their surprise pumped out 365 gallons. The sad looking Voodoo was finally raised onto a trailer and covered with a tarpaulin sheet to cover the name of a Colonel Mc Donald who normally flew this aircraft but who was not the pilot involved in the crash. When asked what would happen to the pilot, John was advised that he would be posted to bombers!
