Editor John Sootheran heads to Elvington in Yorkshire for his monthly fix of all things historic aviation
“Don’t tell anyone, but I can let you have a look inside,” said Simon, the museum volunteer, as I stood ogling Handley Page Halifax II(III) LV907. This impressive aircraft, Friday the 13th, is the centrepiece in Yorkshire Air Museum’s (YAM) main hangar. It has particular resonance for me, as it’s the type my relative, Pilot Officer Arthur George Sootheran of the RCAF, was navigating when he perished, three days after D-Day in 1944. He was 23. That incident, when the inner-starboard engine exploded on final approach to Linton-on-Ouse, (just 14 miles as the bomber flies from here), happened after a successful raid on Mayenne in France. The mission was in support of the Allies’ drive inland from Normandy’s beaches.
