gorsebank

Will be good to see more from NA. The RCAF Halifax prang listed is in minimal detail, which is sad. The aeroplane was on it's way home from bombing the St.Nazaire u-boats pens when it ran out of fuel, & attempted crash landing at Aberporth, which was then a short grass runway adequate for fighters & target tugs, but not ideal for heavies. As the airfield is on the extreme west coast, quite a few of the later accidents were inbound transatlantic ferry flights in mechanical trouble, lost, or short of fuel. In most cases, even if the aircraft survived the landing they could not manage a take-off, so were broken up for spares on site. May have been part of the functions of the ground staff/mechanics. BTW, these a/c were often not on RAF charge, so wd possibly not show in RAF ops records. USA prominent, but other air forces also involved.

Worth reading "A Backroom Boy in WW2 - Aberporth Works Diary 1944-1945." Written as a journal by a senior Ph.d, of signifciant rank & authority within the organisation. Unusual pithy & cryptic style, but does give an interesting overview of working practices & politics at Aberporth, whilst developing RAF & missiles, & evaluating German hardware. Plenty on daily life in the area at the time, including snippets on Home Guard (inc exercises liasing with submarines off Poppit beach!). Stories of how food rations were enhanced locally. Will give a flavour of life as enjoyed (?) by OP's grandfather, 'tho he may have escaped the office politics!.

I live very close to Aberporth & have always been interested in their ops. Plenty of detail re airfield history on Web - try Mike Ford's RAFAberporth web site for starters. As Chris says the NA is a good source, but little of their service operational records are digitised. I've been piecing together info on activity/ incidents etc for some time, but for obvious reasons many locals who had Aberporth knowledge have gone now. John Armstrong was there from '46, & created the ATC unit on site, has just gone at 101.....The local press were banned from reporting much from there during WW2. I was at a local church open day last summer, & no-one present knew that a fatal accident occurred there in '43 when a landing Spit flew into the church - not even a memorial plaque.