Short Stirling III (BF513 AA-E) on a mission to Stuttgart on 1943-04-15

On Wednesday, 14 April 1943, (a part of) the aircraft of the 75 squadron (RNZAF), took off for a mission to Stuttgart in Germany from a station (airfield) in or near Newmarket.
One of the crew members was NZ42295 Pilot Officer J K Grainger RNZAF. He departed for his mission at 21:32.
He flew with a Short Stirling (type III, with serial BF513 and code AA-E). His mission and of the other crew members was planned for Thursday, 15 April 1943.

Wonderful photos by Russell Mathieson (click on the photo to enlarge).

Russell: Donald McCaskill's pilot's log-book, including sketches he's made of a Wellington and a Stirling. I was brought up with the story that Donald had managed to keep his plane aloft long enough for the crew to bail and when reading a 75 Squadron history several years ago was quite stunned to find that the whole crew had in fact perished. Donald was the son of my great-uncle, Gordon McCaskill, who was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the New Zealand Army and served in Egypt and also in Japan after its surrender. I look forward to discovering more about the other members of Donald's crew. Mail him!

Information about aircraft who did not return from this mission can be found here. Information about the other crew members on this flight can be found at this website (Aircrew Remembered). This website also provides the flight information for this record.

This record can also be found on the maps of Back to Normandy with Google coordinates. You can find the maps by clicking on this link on this location.

There are several possibilities in investigating the flight records on Back to Normandy. All the flights are plotted on maps, sorted " day by day", "by squadron", "by type aircraft", "by year or month", "by location" and much more! Don't miss this!!!

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