When Diving Does Good

[Mr T.]

Well done the team from the Andrew!


60-year mystery of airmen's deaths solved as Mosquito wreck is found
By Oliver Poole
(Filed: 23/07/2004)


The mystery of the final resting place of two Second World War airmen has been solved with the discovery of the remains of their Mosquito fighter-bomber in the Wash.

Almost 60 years after the plane crashed one and a half miles off the north Norfolk coast on the afternoon of March 20, 1945, their remains have been recovered after shifting channels revealed a propeller tip.

It had been hidden by layers of sand and silt until it was seen by the harbourmaster during a routine survey of a rarely used and only recently emerged waterway at King's Lynn in April.

A Royal Navy diving team was called from Portsmouth and the metal parts of the aircraft were identified, the wooden outer structure having rotted decades ago.

The plane had been broken into several pieces by the crash into the shallow water. The remains of Flt-Lt Gabriel Ellis, from Norwich, who was the pilot, were subsequently located where they had been thrown from the cockpit by the impact.

His gunner, Sgt William Reidy, from Boscombe, Dorset, was found amid the debris.

Relatives of the two airmen had not known anything about them since the accident as no attempt had ever been made to find the missing de Havilland Mosquito.

The son and daughter of Flt-Lt Ellis visited the site yesterday morning. Sue Raftree, the Ministry of Defence case work officer, said: "The children of Ellis, who were aged one and four at the time their father's plane went down, are finding it understandably hard to cope with this after so many years.

"They did not really know their father. Their mother remarried soon after and they became part of her second family, accepting her husband as their father."

Arrangements will be made for the airmen's funerals, which are expected to be held at a military cemetery.

Two engines, two propellers and two cannon - one of which was destroyed because of fears that it contained explosives - were also recovered.

Mark Tilbury, officer in charge at the marine salvage unit, said: "We will come back during the low tides in September and have another look."

Known as the "Wooden Wonder", the Mosquito was used primarily as a bomber. The plane, from 85 Squadron, had been specially adapted with an extra set of machineguns so it could patrol the Norfolk coast to spot any incursions by German planes or ships.

[Helen F H]

My grandad used to build Mosquitos.

[darthmoll]

it always send a shiver up my spine when i here about servicemen/women that have lain undiscovered for years, after loosing there lives defending us.

God bless them, RIP

[Crisspy Fiver]

I watched an old video once called "some of our airmen are no longer missing" or something like that. It was basically about a country in Europe that dont have much land so it reclaims it from the sea. In doing this many WW2 aircraft have been recovered, airmen's bodies have also been recovered and reunited with families. I think in all cases military funerals were also given to these men.

It must be a sad time as mentioned. I think I would be happy though to finally know what actually happened to them and to be able to lay them to rest in proper dignified circumstances.

I have purchased Diver today and noted the article about the Flying Fortress bomber. I have not read it yet but got all excited as I would like to dive aircraft an one day. Its all to easy to forget though the brave people who went up every day not knowing if they would come back.

I guess there is a lot more WW2 aircraft out there waiting to be discovered.

Thanks for posting this Bren its made me think.

Jamie.

[Mr T.]

Divers find murdered Amelie's purse in river
[Filed: 24th August 2004]


Police hunting the murderer who bludgeoned Amelie Delagrange to death have found some of the French student's property discarded in the Thames, several miles away.

Miss Delagrange, 22, died last Thursday night in Twickenham, south-west London, after being attacked as she crossed a cricket field.

Her handbag and mobile phone were missing, leading police to suspect the attack might have been a robbery. Detectives revealed that police divers searching the river under a bridge at Walton-on-Thames found housekeys, a Sony Walkman CD player and a purse which they believe belonged to Miss Delagrange.

The stretch of river is a drive of up to 20 minutes from where Miss Delagrange was murdered.

Det Chief Supt Andy Murphy, who is leading the murder hunt, appealed for anyone who was in the area around the bridge at 10.20pm on Thursday to contact police.

[Crisspy Fiver]

Out of interest do these Police divers search every inch of a river or lake withing a certain range? It seemed amazing to me that the Police had looked in a place that seemed miles and miles away.

On the news last night they kind of suggested that they had received some info that made them search that area.

Just curios as it must take a lot of effort to search every inch of a 20 mile strecth of river.

Nice work though

Jamie

[Michael Lowrey]

The work of Innes McCartney and other divers who search for and attempt to identify lost submarines from the two world wars very much falls in the same category. The recent Wreck Detectives episode on UB 65 is but one recent example of divers helping to determine the fate of a missing submarine and her crew.

Best wishes,

Michael

[Mr T.]

Prove I did it, 'Lady in the Lake' killer taunted police
By Adrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
(Filed: 30/01/2005)

Gordon Park was cold, selfish and devoid of remorse but not as clever as he thought, says the detective who caught him

The detective who brought Gordon Park, the "Lady in the Lake" killer, to justice after 29 years described him yesterday as a "cold, calculating murderer" who was arrogant, selfish and devoid of remorse.


Mrs Park's body was only discovered in 1997

Det Chief Insp Keith Churchman revealed that at the time of Park's arrest a year ago and during two days of interviews, he had in effect taunted the police, suggesting that they would never gather enough evidence to convict him.

Park, 61, was convicted on Friday - after a 10-week trial at Manchester Crown Court - of murdering his wife, a fellow school teacher, in July 1976. She had not been reported missing for six weeks and it was only in August 1997 that her body was found. Park told police that she had run off with another man, deserting him and their three children. In fact, he had bludgeoned her to death, trussed up her body and dumped it, with weights, in Coniston Water.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Churchman, 46, who has served in the police for 27 years, spoke yesterday of his satisfaction at being able to clear the name of Mrs Park, who was 30 when she died.

"The biggest thing for me is that the record has now been put straight and Carol Park's good name has been restored. This isn't a woman who abandoned her children and her husband for another man but instead she was a murder victim, killed by the very man who had wrongly blamed her for all those things.

"We now know that Gordon Park was a cold, calculating murderer, who was a control freak and who was very selfish. Everything he has done since 1976 was for himself - to cover up what he did."


Gordon Park: 'a cold fish and very arrogant'

Mr Churchman said that he had personally arrested Park at his home in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, where he lived with his third wife, Jenny, on January 13 last year.

"He was a cold fish and very arrogant. His attitude towards us was, `You prove it' [that he had killed his wife]. In the two days of interviews that followed he had only one concern: self-preservation.

"There was not a flicker of emotion towards his wife and obviously, since he was denying everything, no remorse. He just tried to explain away every piece of evidence we had against him."

Mr Churchman suspects that Park was so calculating that he murdered his wife on the first day of the summer holidays so as to give himself the maximum time - the six-week school break - before she would be expected back at work. "Gordon Park wanted to stall the investigation so he could cover his tracks," he said.

Officers suspect that Park decided to murder his wife because she was threatening to leave him and deny him access to their three children, Vanessa, then 8, Jeremy, 6, and Rachel, 5. In August 1979 Park divorced his wife on the grounds of her desertion.

During his interviews with detectives, Park explained why he was apparently so little concerned by his wife's disappearance that he had failed to report her missing. "He said that because she had left him so many times before he was not concerned and that he thought she would just come back as she always did. But we were able to prove that she had never left before without letting him know where she was. So this was not the same as before."

Park was first arrested on August 25 1997, 12 days after his wife's body was found by amateur divers. He was charged with murder, kept in jail but released in January 1998 when the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to pursue the case.

In September 1998 an inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing on Mrs Park. Ian Smith, the coroner, said of her killer: "I hope that if that person is still alive, which they may be, they have a conscience - and I hope their conscience is troubling them."

Park, however, seemed untroubled by his conscience as he continued to enjoy his retirement and pursue his hobby of sailing.

In January 2002 Cumbria Police began a new, secret investigation into the murder using a team of six officers, headed by Mr Churchman. They were able to obtain new evidence from two men who had been in Preston prison with Park while he was awaiting trail in 1997. Both men, one of whom had been his cellmate, said that Park had confessed to killing his wife.

Detectives also obtained crucial new evidence from an expert in knots, who believed that Park had used the same knots, including distinctive "loop knots", to tie up his wife as he used for sailing and climbing.

Eventually, police were convinced that they had obtained enough fresh evidence to re-arrest Park and, once again, charge him with the murder.

Mr Churchman spoke of his pride yesterday at having brought Park to justice. The killer was jailed for life on Friday by Mr Justice McCombe, who said that because of the aggravating features of the case he would have to serve at least 15 years.

"This is a man who thought he had got away with his crime and yet, nearly 29 years on, as the result of good detective work by a small force, we were able to get a conviction. It is very satisfying to achieve such a first-class result."

Park's children with his murdered wife, Jeremy Park, now 34, and Rachel Garcia, 33, had appeared at the courtroom, apparently to support their father during the trial. Vanessa Fisher, 36, the couple's adopted daughter, was not present. Ivor Price, 65, Mrs Park's brother, collapsed in court after the verdict. Later he said the past 29 years had been "a living hell, a living nightmare".

He added: "This today has all been about one thing: justice for Carol. Gordon Park said he loved my sister and yet he destroyed her character in that court. I just think he's a very, very evil character."