Kuno
-
Posts
355 -
Joined
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Blogs
Events
Articles
Store
Downloads
Posts posted by Kuno
-
-
@ Snapper; if you would be in danger of life, then please do not tell anything. I would somehow feel guilty - and this only that short after I have joined this forum. No, that's not what I want.
-
Hi Rick; don't think that we are working on the same project. However - you never know...
Never heard about the "competition". Would be interesting to learn more about his job with the LY-gouvernment, Snapper.
-
Have spent a lot of my time at various locations in Libya; depending on the job...
-
Two Bedford Q are still on daily duty in the Jabel al Akhdar region of Eastern Libya. They are used to provide water to the sheep in the fertile plain once the rainfall has stopped in early summer...
-
It was just 175 kilometres south of the location where LBG crashed where another tragedy took place in the year before:
-
Would really be worth to make a good movie. What I "like" about this story is how members of a feared bomber suddenly become lost and have to struggle for their survival. Makes one thinking, how often we simply rely on our "technical assistants" and how helpless we become if they stop working. Fascinating as well, how long human being is fighting for survival - would be interesting to know, if they were somehow aware, how far off they were...
-
Was very surprised to find this new page about the LBG. If they want, I can sent them some pics of the wreckage and the crashsite as it looks today.
What is somewhat strange to me is the mentioning of Italian truck traces dating back to 1941. How can someone date such traces? Ok; the British truck traces are left by the LRDG, so you can say that they were not older than 1940 :-). But for the Italians?
-
In the mid 1960s they exported about 10'000 tons of scrapmetal!
-
Just found a new website regarding our subject; the "map room" is most interesting:
-
Hi Rick; the area where they have bailed out makes it simply impossible that any one of them could have reached a safe place (water). I would assume that he has jumped only a little bit later than the others and could not find to the group once landed. Maybe he was hurt and could not walk. One day somebody will find him...
-
-
It is really strange that the last crewmember has never been found...
-
@ abn; actually all crewmembers have been found - except the one you have mentioned. After the plane was found empty, a huge search mission was initialized. One of the crew kept a diary... until the last moment. I am not sure, if the diary is mentioned in the book above - but it is a dramatic read. They were far more south than they had expected and they had no chance to reach anything when marching north.
---
What not so many people know; about 200kms north of the crashsite of the LBG, an Italian torpedo-bomber had the same fate. Coming back from an attack on Allied shipping it went lost without trace. Until it was found in the early 1960s. The pilot managed to forceland the machine. He removed the compass and marched north to try to reach the track from Giarabub to Gialo. The others waited near the plane. He did not know, that this was not a major trafic rout but only an occassionally used track. Anyhow, he did not reach it and died in the dunes.
-
First of all: There are not many vehicles out in the desert any more; then, I am not really familiar with the production numbers and must admit that I have left the hard works with the colleagues in MLU ;-)
The vehicles at Jebel Sherif were easy :-). The Chevrolet of the Free French is identified as well. MLU colleagues could tell me something about another French used CMP but ir remains a miracle - no clue, who has left it that far south.
Forgot to mention a Ford F.30 of G Patrol. Although there was no number visible - the location fitted with the description in the book.
-
...not always lucky. I drive a Landrover...
-
Unit markings; never saw any. But the numbers, if the plates are still there, are always worth a picture. In this particular case nothing was to be found any more.
-
It is always somehow a strange feeling, if you approach such loaction. Sometimes after hundrets of kilometres of driving through the desert. Then you stand in front of such wreck and try to imagine, how the crew must have felt (although in this particular case, the crew bailed out before the plane had landed).
-
Personally I would like to have seen it at is original place... have visited the crashsite last year. There are still pieces of the wreckage. Desperate place...
Just to prove that it was not the crew who brought the LBG to TOBRUK who caused this immense damage to the wreck: Attached is a picture of the German traveller Reinhard Mazur, photographed just shortly before it has been removed:
-
FORD WOT2 15cwt
This little truck appeared once in front of the restaurant next to the fuel station at AGEDABIA. The owner of that retaurant obviously wanted it to attract people. In the meantime he has either recognized, that the truck has no effect to the visitors of the restaurant or that he can make more money with the scrap iron; the truck is not there any more...
-
The LBG Story is a quite sad one. Understandable that the USAAF has removed parts for testing after the plane was discovered. In 1994 (or was it 1995) the Dept. of Antiquities has transported what was left to TOBRUK to prevent the wreckage from further looting. However; once stored in a yard in the middle of the town, nothing happened any more for years. Only a few weeks ago a colleague addressed to me, telling that it has been moved again - this time to the EL ADEM AFB. Cannot say why and if this has really happened for the moment.
---
Recently a made an appeal - or something like that- since I wanted to address to the local Authorities to at least to achive a real display of the plane, just to present it in the same "layout" as it has been found in the desert, to add some information plates etc.. Was hoping for some assistance from US, particuarily those people who maintain all the websites about the LBG - but no reaction at all. A pitty!
-
Don't know - they are next to a military compound and actually I was not allowed to go near but could only take this shot from far. Cannot say if engine, gearbox etc. are still available or if its only the hull...
-
@ Richard; remember it was this AEC Militant:
-
These are three wrecks of Daimler Armoured Cars in Libya. Although they are located in an area where they were employed in the beginning of 1943, shortly before the capture of Tripoli, I do not believe that they are actual "desert war wrecks". It is more likely that they were in use by postwar British forces occupying the country or even that they were driven by the later Libyan army...
-
Thanks for the warm welcome!
What makes me interested in the Desert War? Since I live in the area where it took place and since I like travelling the area it was hardly possible to avoid to come across the traces of the Desert Campaign.
And "yes" - the people in MLU have already helped a lot in matters of identifying vehicle wrecks!
Text on British Wargraves
in Battlefields, museums, monuments and memorials.
Posted
Always very impressive to see how young these people were. Was asked once by a German veteran, if I could take a photo of the name of his best mate from scool days until dead in the desert war from the memorial at Tobruk. He sent me then as well a photo - the last of the colleague alive and the main dates of his life. I returned with the question, if he is sure about the birth-date. It was correct; he was not even 18 years of age when he died. And this was already in 1941!
The German memorial at Tobruk is quite different to the Commonwealth cemeteries. No individual stones but only the pure names laid in mosaic. No rank nothing. The names in alphabetical order...