Our 1943 Halifax Rolls Royce Merlin engine from Halifax JD150 which was recovered from a bog in Germany in 2010 is up and running successfully,
This will be a unique opportunity to hear the sound of a Halifax Merlin engine complete with it’s “Saxophone” style exhausts since the war.
On the night of 27th/28th July 1943 Halifax II JD150 DY-A (a veteran of 14 bombing operations) took off from RAF Pocklington in Yorkshire at 22.32 for the last time to bomb Hamburg in Germany. While on route to the target tragically the aircraft was met by a hail of cannon fire from the guns of a German Night Fighter Pilot Fw Hans Meissner and Funker Josef Krinner of II.NJG3 in an Me110 night fighter based at Schleswig in Germany.
The pilot Gordon Brown aged just 19 battled with the crippled bomber but tragically it was a battle he would ultimately loose when the aircraft struck the ground in a swampy area at Hobek near Rendsburg in Germany & exploded. It was the crew’s third and final bombing operation becoming yet another set of statistics of RAF Bomber Command losses.
The crew of Halifax JD150:
Pilot – Sgt Gordon Harry Brown – Aged 19
Flight Engineer – Sgt John Alfred Tyler
Navigator – P/O William Joseph Hitchcock (‘Jack’) – Aged 32
Air Bomber – P/O Robert William Allison
Wireless Operator – Sgt James Wesley Rooke – Aged 22
Air Gunner – Sgt Edward Gough
Air Gunner – Sgt William Alexander Sinclair