Hampden bomber wreckage restored to former glory

Air November 21, 2016

Experts at the RAF Museum in Cosford have painstakingly restored a World War II bomber.

The restored aircraft is one of only three Hampden bombers of the original 1,430 manufactured to survive.

On 5^th September 1942, the plane was forced to crash land in woodland with only Pilot Officer Esmond Perry and Technician, Corporal George Shepherd the only members of the crew to survive.

Air gunners Sgt Robertson and Sgt Daniel Garrity, along with Flight Sergeant Gordon Miller, did not survive the encounter.

The dead were buried in a German military cemetery with full military honours.

The Hampden was one of 32 aircraft with the mission to protect the Arctic convoys.

Almost 50 years after being gunned down by anti-aircraft fire and two Messerschmitt Bf 109s, the plane wreckage was recovered in 1991 from a crash site in northern Russia.

The long-term restoration project began when the Museum took possession of the wreckage in 1992, with the rear fuselage of the Hampden being rebuilt in the past year.

Significant progress has been made over the past 12 months in efforts to build a replica of the forward fuselage from the little surviving wreckage of that part of the aircraft.

Forces TV has released a video of Darren Priday, Manager of the Michael Beetham Conservation Centre giving a tour of the aircraft and its history.

Darren Priday, Manager of the Michael Beetham Conservation Centre, said: “We don’t have too much of the forward fuselage so we really wanted to have something to allow us to show the damaged section, which will to help to the story when we put it on display at some point. The project for the fuselage is t try and get it completed by 2018, which ties in nicely with 100^th anniversary of the Royal Air Force.”