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I'm about halfway through this puzzle in which a "letter must be dropped wherever it occurs" in all the down answers, these then spell out a couple of phrases.

The problem, as I see it, is that some of the the candidates for dropped letters are in unchecked cells, so there's no way to work out from the across clues which ones to omit. such as in 12d and 21d.

Does this mean we're supposed to deduce some of the omitted letters from the message itself by guessing words in the phrases, and some from the clues?

Or, more likely, I have misundertood it?

Exactly so, Brendan. Concentrate on working out the phrases, and the gridfill sorts itself out

Many thanks Quisling.

Okay, I've got the first one - which the clue number pretty much confirmed.

Plus, I'd overlooked the part of the preamble that says "all entries are real words or names at every stage"!

That was certainly useful information 😉

Big thanks to proXimal, that was a lot of fun. I especially liked the final touch with the re-enacment of the event that befell...

I too enjoyed this puzzle, especially the illustration of the event. The preamble did however get me wondering once the 2 phrases had emerged. The first of those events occurred the year before the one referred to by the second. That is however a very slight and over-pedantic 'quibble'.

Many thanks to proXimal. Excellent puzzle and the pdm (or should that be “adm”?) was a joy. And all very apt given the number of the puzzle.

... and I've just realised that where the objects hits exactly matches the, albeit probably apocryphal, account of the incident.

ADM - Just got it Jack, nice one 😉