Thasos - aircraft wreck discovered

[apwright]

The wreckage of a Nieuport 11 has recently been discovered in the mountains of Thasos. (Or perhaps "rediscovered", as some people seem to have known about it for years... )

It's tentatively identified as the machine of Flt Lt Warner Hutchins Peberdy RNAS, who went missing on 14 Jan 1917, and was assumed to have ditched in the sea and drowned.

Couple of links (in Greek only, I'm afraid)

http://www.onalert.gr/default.php?pname=Article&catid=2&art_id=13750

http://www.modelclub.gr/forums/index.php/topic,22596.0.html

The chap responsible for this (re-)discovery is the man who in 2010 found the grave of Spyros Hambas at Çanakkale

and if manicafan and MikeW are reading this, it's HambAS not HambRAS!).

EDIT: Although Hambas's grave was apparently only "lost" as far as Greek historians were concerned - turns out he's been lying in the CWGC's Chanak Consular Cemetery all along, in one of the non-Commonwealth graves in CWGC care.

Adrian

[trajan]

Really liked that skeleton view in the first link - but I do wish I had a bit more than just enough ancient Greek for reading tombstones to go by!

Trajan

[Eschwege1917]

Actually the wreckage does not belong to a Nieuport 11...

Both Constantinos Lagos and me have discussed over several emails the possibility that the aircraft was in fact FL Peberdy's Ni-11 '8973' in which he dissapeared on the 14th of January 1917. Then, after much information exchange with WWI Aviation historians and experts in UK (Trevor Henshaw, Trevor Foreman, Colin Huston, Mick Davis, Andy Kemp, David Méchin, Peter Gould, etc.), we ended up with a Sopwith F.1 Camel. Unfortunately it's identity is still unknown. Probably the pilot survived the crash and this is the main reason why this incident is not documented (although the research never stops).

Paschalis Palavouzis