People to talk to

[Observer]

Hi all

I have been thinking for some time that this mystery is not going to move on until we start asking new people questions.
Maggie Thatcher's quote to Bruni was "You Can't Tell the People" Which implies she knew what happened. Is Maggie approachable and would she be willing to talk, she is an old lady now?
The other person is Squadron Leader Moreland [now retired] who was the RAF's liaison Officer at Bentwaters. I think he knows what happened.

UASF personel of that day such as admin clerks and radio operators are long retired and would be very hard to find and question. None however, have entered into this debate.

The only person i managed to contact was an ex ARRS HH53 pilot based at Woodbridge in the mid 80's and i asked him point blank for his take on the subject. All he would say was, read between the lines, think what was most unlikely to happened and all will be revealed. Riddles i know, but i guess he is also protecting his pension. He also said that we are all looking at the more obvious answers, and we should look out side the box for the truth.

Observer

[Wolf]

I have raised the question of the 'events' with several people who were involved directly or indirectly with the incident and all I can honestly tell you, based on their responses, is that something definately happened over the Christmas period.

Now, somewhere, laying on a dusty old shelf at Mildenhall, Ramstein, Keesler, Maxwell etc (dare I say Hangar 18 at WP... ) there must be the SPS/LE shift/CSC logs (including duty logs, alert status's, issued weapons etc ), the POL requisition log, the equipment logs (vehicles and lightalls etc), the log books for the 53's, shift rotas for the 67th etc.

There is so little proper paperwork that is used to illustrate this incident apart from the witness testimonies and the Halt memo. It would be a good idea to do some digging from the other end of the papertrail (if it still exists).

The MOD released documentation makes a vaguely interesting read as does the information relating to the incident which was released under the FOIA on the day the act came into force in the UK.

See - http://www.suffolk.police.uk/Useful+Inf ... lesham.htm

I can only assume that there is more information being held by the USAF/DOD on what happened, but as yet no one has asked the right questions. Based on information I have been told by people who were indirectly involved there must be a wider paper trail. If an entry point onto this trail could be found then who knows what 'whole can of worms' will be opened.

V/R, best wishes for 08

Wolf

[ppulatie]

A 67th pilot who was stationed at Woodbridge would not know the full details. Take him with a pound of salt.

As to evidence such as logs, etc., there really would not be much. The LE and CSC logs covered the incident in little detail. This was normal. There was no time to type in everything, especially since things that went into the logs were what was communications between the LE desk and the Le patrolmen. CSC had very little to do with this. It was all an LE function.

As to alert status, etc., you bring up the "devil in the details". A basic understanding of how the base operated is in order.

At the time, the squadron was commanded by Major Zigler, and his deputy Major Drury. They were always competing against each other, being of equal rank.

Whenever anything happened, an alert would be called for the most minor things. A 15/5 response where there must be 15 people on scene in 5 minutes and a 30/30 which meant 30 people in 30 minutes. I have seen these responses called for a guy hunting pheasant off base and firing a shotgun at them.

When this event occurred, there was no alert. Nothing at all. Troops were not called out, weapons dispensed, anything. I would have been the first to know because I always had a radio on me since I worked in Ops. I lived in the barracks and if an alert was called, I would have been radioed and had to awaken everyone in the barracks to respond. Of course, this made me an unpopular fellow.

The absence of any alert certainly says much about the "severity" of the incident.

There have been some who have indicated that the area was cordoned off with security troops. This is not so. To have cordoned off the area, that meant that US troops would have needed to go off base to do so. The only way that this could have occurred is with permission of the UK Base Commander. And that would have entailed a recall of a 30/30, which I would have been alerted in the barracks first.

Otherwise, it could only have been sealed off using Britisn forces or police. If this had occurred, there would be much more evidence and stories of this.

[Wolf]

As to alert status, etc., you bring up the "devil in the details".

Hi ppulatie

I agree with you 100% re the calling of a 15/5 and a 30/30. A friend of mine was on base and on duty (SP) during the events and he confirmed to me that no alert was called. I have also had this confirmed by 3 other sources.

But as I said, something happened, its just a case of filtering out the white noise and extracting the truth. I think a lot of salt will be needed.

V/R

Wolf