Hi Deans Marine
Just thought I would send you this picture of HSL156 which is almost ready to go.
Built By Mr Bigley
A little bit of history on this boat is:
I am an aircraft enthusiast and specialise in the USAF 8th Airforce which was based in East Anglia during WW11.
My local airfield was the 305BG at Chelveston where I used to have flights in B.17's (ATC air experience was the term used). Whist searching my records I came across a B.17 from the 305 BG which had crashed in the North Sea after a bombing mission and the crew were picked up by HSL 156 .
Enquiries where made on various military web sites to ascertain if I could get any information on 156. After a few months I almost gave up when out of the blue a Mike Lockwood (the son of the Captain of 156 F/O Geoffrey Lockwood) contacted me and gave me information regarding this pick from the North Sea.
His e-mail stated that on 6th September 1943 at 1315 hrs his fathers boat was in the North Sea and rerceived a signal to proceed to seek crashed aircraft some 17 miles away in the middle of a mine field
this they did and picked up 10 crewmen and 2 dinghies these were from a B.17 "145, 379 group, 527 Sqdn "out of Kimbolton Airfield and as they were returning to base (Newhaven) they were instructed to go to a second B.17 "004 305 group 364 Sqdn" out of Chelveston when they picked up 9 crewman and the 10th crewman was picked up by HSL 177. For this action F/O Geoffrey Lockwood (Captain) was awarded the DSC. I also managed to contact the USAF pilots son who's father was awarded the Purple Heart by the USAF. I did manage to get both of the sons to contact each other.
