Finds at the site were limited with the vast majority being the shattered remains of an Alison engine. A plate recovered confirmed the aircraft as a P-51 Mustang, but our searches turned up nothing as at the time we were unaware it was an R.A.F. registered mark 1, a mark that was not widely in use by the USAAF in England during 1944.
Research undertaken in recent years have shown that the aircraft related to this crash was in fact R.A.F. registered AM138. Records show that AM138 served with 241 Squadron R.A.F. and is last recorded as serving with the A.T.A. It was later delivered to the U.S.A.A.F. airfield at Bovingdon.
It was from Bovingdon that Pilot Joseph M Cole JR U.S.A.A.F. took-off from that fatal day (Joe was a pilot who in 1941undertook a course in meteorology. After that he was assigned to Will Rogers Field, Oklahoma, as Weather Officer for the Forty-seventh Bombardment Group. He was ordered overseas as Weather Officer for the Sixth Fighter Wing and later with the Eighth Fighter Command. It was with this last command that he established weather stations in the British Isles.) Joseph took-off in Mustang AM138 from Bovingdon on February 1944 on a non-operational flight (Possibly unauthorised?) Local witnesses recall watching the aircraft involved in aerobatics for some time before the fatal crash.
Heading photo: P51 Mustang 1’s being prepared for delivery to Great Britain.
Gallery photo (1): Letter from solicitors to Captain C J Mead owner of the field where the Mustang crashed, passed on to us in 1980.
Gallery photo (2): Photo of Lt. Col. Joseph M Cole JR U.S.A.A.F. taken from his United States Military Academy Class year book of 1940, when a graduate at West Point.
Gallery photo (3): Label recovered from the crash site of AM128 relating to fuel tank fitted to the Mustang.