Lindholme Buoy, The

DESCRIPTION: "We get the gen from the Ops Room when A Whitley takes the air. We know for sure from times before It won't stay long up there," so the rescue squad prepares to drop a LIndholme Buoy. Happily, the Whitley makes it to Reykjavik
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook)
KEYWORDS: technology rescue travel
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook, pp. 146-147, "The Lindholme Buoy" (1 text)
NOTES [240 words]: Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook lists the tune of this as "The Farmer's Boy," but there are enough songs by that title that I hesitate to say which one is meant.
The Armstrong Whitworth "Whitley" was one of several two-engined bomber aircraft the British were using at the start of World War II. It was not a particularly good bomber -- rather slow, and with limited armament. As a result, the Whitley gradually lost its role as a bomber to the Wellington and then to four-engine planes like the Lancaster. According to Kenneth Munson, Aircraft of World War II, second edition, Doubleday, 1972, p. 25, the first bomber squadron was transferred to Coastal Command in the very first month of the war. In March 1941 many Whitleys were fitted for antisubmarine work, and others for reconnaissance. So there were a lot of them in coastal areas to get in trouble.
The Whitley is the subject of "I Love to Fly a Whitley Three" and "Ops in a Whitley" (which see).
The "Lindholme Buoy" is more properly "Lindholme Gear," or the "Air Sea Rescue Apparatus Mark 4." It consisted of five floating containers connected by ropes; one container held a nine-person inflatable dinghy; the others held clothes, food, and other supplies. Thus it could be dropped to the crew of a crashed plane until they could be rescued. The basic mechanism is said to have been used into the twenty-first century, though I'm sure the individual parts have been updated.- RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: WJL126

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