English: These parts are from a Lockheed F-5C-1-LO Lightning reconnaissance aircraft, originally built as a P-38J-5-LO but converted to an F-5 at Lockheed’s Dallas Modification Centre. She had the c/n 422-1756 and the US military serial 42-67245.

In April 1944 she was being operated by the 27th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, part of the 7th Photographic Reconnaissance Group under the Eighth Air Force and was based at Mount Farm in Oxfordshire. On 6th April Lieutenant Ernset E.Johnston took the aircraft up for a camera test and while over Swindon at 25,000ft he saw smoke coming from the port engine. With the oil pressure gauge for that engine reading high he then saw fuel spraying from the cowling and while he was calling Mount Farm for a vector home a fire broke out and started to spread. He rolled the aircraft inverted and safely baled out. The Lightning dived to the ground near Wroughton, the port engine having been “blown out of its mount” during the dive, according to the official US crash report. The site was excavated by the museum and the remains have been placed on display near the parts of a second F-5 from Moutn Farm which had crashed within a mile of this site on 5th February 1944. Wings Museum, Balcombe, West Sussex, UK

20th August 2020