Hi All, Going back to the AP still, looking at the Hoatson Horsa in the background, it appears that they had burned the eastern horsa before they pushed or rolled the Hoatson Horsa further into the ditch. John
Hi Hans, Reading the family account in post #1 of this thread, I would wonder if the glider was landed along the road? Seems an unusual choice of approach, but perhaps the choices were limited at that moment in time. Regards, Pat
Hi All, I always worry about the semantics of any given statement. I am often looking for what was meant by a statement. I guess it comes from my police work. In my opinion, when it was stated "He landed the fuselage between two rows of trees" I consider what was meant was He came to rest with the fuselage between two rows of trees. There is some large pieces of wing directly south of the Hoatson wreck, on the other side of the hedgerow, that don't seem that they could belong to any other glider. I just think that the Hoatson wreck went through the hedgerow on the south side of the road, but did not clear the one on the north side of the road and bounced off it at an angle. John
Recently I received the photo shown here. With the research done in this thread it was pretty easy to pinpoint the location of this Horsa glider. Not much informatio to add, execpt that it was piloted by 2nd Lt. Richard Farnsworth and 2nd Lt. Thayer Bonecutter, glider pilots of the 81st Troop Carrier Squadron. This is glider marked B in earlier posts of aerial photos. Happy to have been able to provide extra information to the families of these two pilots. And a special thanks to Pat and John for their work on this topic.
Great photo Hans, Thanks for sharing it with readers. Before and after the burn... Adding the names of the crew really ties it up nicely; now all we need is the glider number Regards, Pat
Hi all, Those of you who have a copy of Martin Wolfe's Green Light may be familiar with the photo of Thayer Bonecutter and Richard Farnsworth on page 99 of that book. It is in a section titled "Pre-dawn glider missions" just before a discussion of Operation Elmira. According to the caption, they are posed in front of their Horsa glider. The image is not dated and I don't know if the glider is the one that was eventually burned after crashing into the hedgerows on the D17 near the La Londe farm. The glider has some markings on it, but I can't make out what they are. Perhaps some art work. Bonecutter does briefly describe the situation after the crash on pg. 108. Charles
Pat, I had come across the book "Green Light" before as a PDF file. I have now downloaded it to your Adrive account in the file under my name. I'm still a novice at some stuff, but I managed that I should quickly add that the photo of the Horsa looks like they used the 2 port side windows as eyes and outlined some hair and side of face (ears) features. John
Sorry guys, I should have tried to scan the image, but was having some problems with my scanner. I just gave it another try and it seemed to have worked! It may not have come out as well as the copy that John has, but in any event here what I was able to copy: I agree John, that the art work seems to be a face of some sort. Charles