My foot is intact (From York Press)

My foot is intact

9:52am Tuesday 16th October 2012 in Letters By Reader's letter

IAN RICHARDSON (Letters, October 14) accuses me of shooting myself in the foot, but my foot is still intact.

I stated that Whitley aircraft never operated from Elvington and there is no record of this in the Operational Record Book for RAF Elvington and No 77 Squadron respectively. It may be that the occasional Whitely aircraft landed at Elvington before the station opening, but this is unlikely as the airfield was still under construction.

Furthermore, by this time Whitley aircraft had mostly been relegated to training duties or were serving with Coastal Command and, according to Bomber Command War Diaries by Martin Middlebrook the last Whitley to be lost on operations was on September 13/14, 1942, and the last operation involving Whitleys was to Hamburg on July 28/29, 1942, well before the first operation from Elvington on February 4/5, 1943 Also it is unlikely that I would have spent several days in the National Archives reading the Elvington and No 77 Squadron records and completely missed any reference to Whitleys.

With regard to the photograph, it could be anywhere, most of the people appear to be ground crew, not aircrew, as no rank badges or brevets are visible.

Mike Usherwood, Mendip Close, Huntington, York.