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Donald, Tain, Dornoch. printer friendly version
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Mira Slovak
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Posted Wednesday, May 22, 2013 @ 01:03 AM  

Donald and some of you who might be intersted. Looks like it is quiet on Eastern and Western front's on CFI webside. So, before the cumulus clouds start popping up, maybe we can reminisce and go a litle bit back in history. Off course when the cumulus cloud's take effect...I will have to learn how to fly my hangar door, beacuse my RF-4, N-1700 is not ready yet. Indeed Donald, you are quite right when you said in your article about Tain airport that there is a runway to hold a four engines bombers. I read, for the forth time, the book "Only Nine Of Us Survived" It is a book about the Czechoslovakians / Royal Air Force 311 Squadron airman fighting in the Second war and based at Tain airport flying B-24 Liberators, four engine bombers on North Atlantic patrols. It is a fascinating book of courage and survival in the Second World War. ( Sorry, it is written in Czech language only ) but it is a very easy language to learn. Also, there were a few Czechoslovakian airman buried at Tain cemetery. On one incident flying B-24, on Take Off in winter time, with bad weather, over loaded airplane, at night, while proceedingt to red and white beacon striped , Tarbatt Ness, for some unknown reason they /B-24 / prematurely turned North West and hit the mountains 30 km from the airport. Now, after communist self destrucion, they are home. So my friend Donald, when you fly from Tain airport, once a while think of them. On my ferry flights for Vulcanair old Partenavia, flying from Naples, Italy to California, via Inverness to Wick, on many ocasions, I have made a circle over Tain to pay my respect and remember their sacrifice. Any War... Sucks. Mira Slovak.

Donald
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Posted Wednesday, May 22, 2013 @ 01:00 PM  

Mira, I live in Tain and am always astonished when people have heard of the place and even more astonished when they know where it is. For a Czech living in the USA to know it is amazing.

My good friend Billy is a Tain local, I'm an incomer, and he often talks about the variety of military aircraft that used Tain and Dornoch but I did not know of the Czech connection. I did know there was a B24 crash site on the hill you mention which is named Morven. That crew were very unlucky because Morven and the neighbouring hill Scaraben are really the only 2 obstructions of any height in that direction for quite a long way. One degree of difference in track would probably have saved them.

Tain field is much reduced now, abandoned as an airfield it's surrounding coastal flat is now an air gunnery range and the old hard runways are mostly grown over or used by the local farmers for storing all manner of farm goods and implements. The small corner used by the local microlight flyers is all that's now active. Nearby Dornoch has fared slightly better and is kept and maintained as a lovely grass strip although again there is now little sign of the wartime extent.

You mention Inverness and Wick. My RF3 is hangared at Inverness and Wick still maintains a position as a staging post for transatlantic ferry flights. For a while Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides filled that role but some agressive marketing by Andy Bruce of Far North Aviation took pretty much all that business to Wick.

Next time I'm having a walk down near our shore I may visit the cemetery and see if I can find any names of your countrymen. Thank you for posting an interesting insight into local history previously unknown to me.

Best wishes
Donald

Collin
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Posted Wednesday, May 22, 2013 @ 09:28 PM  

Hi,

Thanks for sharing the history about Czech, Tain and the Liberator.

Here is a clip on Mira's history and Reno Air races.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh71we7-p5o

Take care

Collin

Jorgen
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Posted Thursday, May 23, 2013 @ 11:02 PM  

Hi Fournieteers,
fascinating story, thanks for sharing that Mr Slovak. I think you would have done quite splendid with your hangar door over here the other day when I managed to do some springsoaring, the lifts were more than adequate!

Donald, I flew gliders from Aboyne, Deeside gliding club (just east of Aberdeen) a good deal of years ago and one of the wave-generating mountains just to the north was called Mount Morwen if memory serves me right. The unfortunate mountain that caused this B-24 crash surely must have been further north?

May the 4's be with you/ Jörgen

[Edit by Jorgen on Sunday, June 2, 2013 @ 10:16 PM]

Bob Grimstead
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Posted Saturday, May 25, 2013 @ 03:13 AM  

Hello Mira,

Thank you so very much for this interesting information.

I do not know the area, except for Donald's film clips, but if/when I go there, I shall be sure to remember those brave countrymen of yours.

Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

Donald
Command Sergeant Major

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Posted Sunday, May 26, 2013 @ 11:05 AM  


Mira,

I'm sure you will be pleased to learn that the 311 Squadron burial ground in Tain is maintained.
There are 19 graves although one is that of a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and was probably British.
From the dates I presume the squadron lost 4 aircraft as 4 men died on 29 January 1944, 5 on 4 December 1944, 5 on 1 January 1945 and 4 on 10 April 1945.

I have uploaded photographs to my picasa page which you can find here: https://picasaweb.google.com/donmcnicholl/311Squadron?authkey=Gv1sRgCMGCwvyNp5XA7AE

I've also been considering my earlier reply about the B24 crash site and think I got confused with other air crash sites on Morven and Scaraben. I now think it more likely to have been Ben Klibreck. Does your book give a name?

[Edit by Donald on Sunday, May 26, 2013 @ 11:06 AM]

Donald
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Posted Sunday, May 26, 2013 @ 05:29 PM  

Quote:
Originally posted by Bob Grimstead
I do not know the area, except for Donald's film clips, but if/when I go there, I shall be sure to remember those brave countrymen of yours.

Bob


Come to our fly-in Bob. I've just been given the dates, July 27 & 28 at Dornoch strip, just across the water from Tain.
Jorgen
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Posted Sunday, May 26, 2013 @ 09:30 PM  

Thanks for sharing that, Donald- Gone but not forgotten.

May the 4's be with you/ Jörgen

Bob Grimstead
Captain

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Location: Perth, Western Australia or West Sussex, England
Registered: Dec 2006
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Posted Tuesday, May 28, 2013 @ 10:55 AM  

Hi Donald,

I/we would love to come, but unfortunately we're going to be displaying at Cleethorpes that weekend, and because it's such a lean year, we daren't miss it.

I hope the weather is good and you have a great trun-out.

Yours, Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

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