From reading Johnny Burns notebooks, we understand that the coastwatchers used the shorthand W.E.F.T. that is Wings, Engine, Fuselage and Tail details to identify as best as possible the aircraft sighted, reported and recorded in the Logbooks as seen in the sky around them. This Handbook on the Identification of Aircraft was the property of the late A.P. Kearns and is now part of the collection at Military Archives, Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin. The books were printed and distributed in 1941.
As the war progressed and The Donegal Air Corridor came into use, the number of flights progressively increased as did the types of aircraft sighted. Early in WW2, the Irish Aircorps Aircraft, of Avro Ansen type, patrolled the Irish coast, there were German aircraft sighted flying distinct patterns from Brest after the German invasion of France. British Airforce Aircraft were sighted using the Donegal Air Corridor with Lough Erne as a seaplane base alongside a multitude of land bases in Northern Ireland. The flights were training fights, coastal patrols, ferry flights of aircraft from North America and aircraft that protected as best as possible the trans-atlantic shipping, Battleships and other vessels during the Battle of Britain. Being only able to fly as far a range as the mid Atlantic gap, the Donegal Air Corridor shortened the route and flying times. As the war progressed towards the D-Day landing there was a considerable increase in the numbers and diversity of bombers sighted, reported and recorded.
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Documents courtesy of Military Archives, Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin
