On 20 October our Managing Director, Alastair Adams, visited the RAF Hornchurch Heritage Centre, which is run by the volunteers of the Hornchurch Aerodrome Historical Trust. He went to present one of our Raunchy Wolf replicas to the Trust, together with a donation from sales of the pen.
The replica joins the pen that inspired it: a Conway Stewart recovered from an Essex field eighty-one years after the B-17 Raunchy Wolf came down there.
The new replica, left, beside the original Conway Stewart No. 236 recovered from the crash site.
26 September 1943
That evening two B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 385th Bomb Group, Raunchy Wolf and Dorsal Queen, were returning to their base at Great Ashfield in Suffolk. Bad weather had kept them from their target at Reims, and they were still carrying their bombs. Near West Horndon the two aircraft collided and fell onto farmland. Twenty young men died. The tail gunner, Staff Sgt John J. Adams, was the only survivor.
In autumn 2024 the local historian Sue Lister recovered a fountain pen from the field where Raunchy Wolf came down. Conway Stewart historian Steve Hull identified it as one of our No. 236 models from the late 1930s, a lever-filler in burgundy and black marble. It is believed to have belonged to the aircraft's navigator, 1st Lt Arthur Ross Moore, and it has been in the Heritage Centre's care since August 2025.
Read the full story of the pen's discovery
The memorial to the crews of Raunchy Wolf and Dorsal Queen, among them the navigator, 1st Lt Arthur R. Moore.
Eighty-one pens
Our replica is based on the Series 58 Burgundy Lever-Fill, in a deep burgundy close to the colour of the No. 236. The edition is limited to 81 pens, one for each year the original lay in the ground. Each has 9ct gold rings and a 14ct gold nib, and the barrel is engraved with the motto of the Royal Air Force, Per ardua ad astra, and the words Lest we forget. Part of every sale goes to the Trust.
RAF Hornchurch
The aerodrome at Hornchurch helped to protect London and the south east in both world wars, and its Spitfire squadrons fought in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Later in the Second World War, Hornchurch Spitfires escorted American B-17s and B-26 Marauders on daylight raids. The Heritage Centre's USAAF Room tells that part of the story, including the loss of the two bombers over West Horndon.
Poppy wreaths laid in remembrance.
Our thanks to Tony Philpot and the volunteers of the Trust. The Heritage Centre is at 119-121 Suttons Lane, Hornchurch, and opens to the public at weekends.
Opening times and visitor information are on the Trust's website
Photographs by Doug Hutson, Hornchurch Aerodrome Historical Trust.
