82 Squadron RAF, Nth Africa, Burma info request

Fred, I stumbled on this thread while trying to find more info on G W MACDONALD. (more specifically his full name and number)

I would like to add two incidents to the career of Macdonald that will be of interest to you as well as to queen fisher, daughter of D V S berrington. The incidents come research on a database I am building for my site on Vultee Vengeance Losses in SEAC. Source for both is the ORB

On 17th Feb 1944, 82 Squadron put up a 12 ac mission for a raid, taking off from Jumchar. They were in the air from 0925-1025. On return from the raid, MacDonald and Berrington in Vengeance AN689 could not get thier undercarraige down. After hanging around for 25 more minutes in the air, they belly landed on the airfield. The aircraft was a write off both both flew to fly another day.

Less than a month later - 9th March 1944, In the afternoon at 1335 hours , a formation was led by MacDonald DFC for fighter cooperation. They were practicing diving to get away from fighters, Fg offr W Beckensall in aircraft R skidded in a dive and cut off the tail of ac G Flown by the leader (Macdonald). Both aircraft crashed. Beckinsall and his observer Parks were killed. MacDonald and his gunner Berrington baled out and landed without hurt. both aircraft are total losses. This happened 3.5miles SSE of Dohazari.

Aircraft involved were AN694 (MacDonald) and EZ976(Beckensall.).

 

Hello,

I am very interested in your posts. I have something that might be of interest. A log book that was passed onto my grandmother from her best friend. Her husband was Cyril Woods and his log book mentions almost all the names mentioned in your posts. Unfortunately Sgt Woods didn’t have any children or family to pass this onto. There are many photos in his log book and I wondered if they might be of interest to you

 

I for one would love to look at them - please do share the photos - looking forward to it!

 

Hi, I wonder if we could initiate contact via this forum. I have a family connection to the squadron in Burma and have started to write a book on his exploits.

 

Hi, Can I ask if the information and photos have been shared, I have a family interest who served on the squadron in Burma