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Malaysia jet crashes in east Ukraine conflict zone


The Sick Moon

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One incident I have not seen reported from the past is the Royal Navy shooting down a (presumably) Aer Lingus civilian flight from Dublin to Liverpool in the early 1940s.

 

This was the regular Collinstown to Liverpool mail packet with passengers. The Irish 'plane gave the password of the day before by way of pre-arranged recognition for a neutral entering a war zone and was shot down at once!

 

I was told this by an uncle who was there and serving on the ship that did it namely a World War One cruiser converted to be a floating anti-aircraft gun battery anchored off the Mersey somewhere.

 

Perhaps both London and Dublin kept it quiet?

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an ex aer lingus plane was shot down in 1941 off the Scilly Isles but not en route from Dublin to Liverpool. a Cork to London Viscountl flight crashed into the Irish Sea/St Georges Channel in the 1960's and it was suggested that it was downed by a British missile, however after two or three investigations, and suggestions it had been a mid air collision with a French Military aircraft, it was discovered a lot of the service records were missing and these were reconstructed and the final investigation report concluded metal fatigue in the tail, possibly exacerbated by bird strike.

 

I suspect your uncles story is apocryphal or an urban myth. There were only two flights a week to Liverpool during wartime, it was the only route they operated outside Ireland (and was frequently diverted to Barton) and mail went by boat. Aer Lingus only had 3 or 4 aircraft, loss of a third of the fleet would have been hard to hush up

 

But we can never be certain

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I know I shouldn't feed the obsession, but the issue with "semi literate"* thread titles is, well ... so coincidental, hey.

I should have known that the semi literate thread title one sees on the front page as The Great Game Revisted Uk should be all about a breaking news story of an air disaster. Silly me.

*Shouldn't there be a hyphen in semi-literate?

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John! I was told that story about the Irish plane shot down off Liverpool well over half a century ago..

 

My uncle, 1924-2007 told me because I asked that age old question "What did you do in the war?!..He told me...

 

He was on this WW1 cruiser used as a floating gun platform off the Mersey..Now I may have got it wrong about the flight schedule. I recall being told it was a daily flight. However!

 

But he told me that they only shot down two aircraft : The Irish mail packet and a Hurricane that came at them out of the sun. It was a Free Polish pilot I was told.

 

That uncle became a big man in the world of shipowning. At his funeral many attended from around the world. I believe him. The family at the time were all in the Royal Navy my mother included. He was there. We were not.

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