Originally Posted by
intertidal
a thought occurred to me that the most statistically likely "incident" resulting in 20mm spent ammo falling over this part of Kent might have been interception of a doodlebug V1/V2 rocket.
or gun testing (?) Detling airfield probably the closest and therefore most likely base...
were there any other significant air campaigns over Kent after the Battle of Britain?
did the empty cartridges simply fall out of the aircraft?
Spent cartridges are ejected from the aircraft after they've been fired and this could take place from Detling, Kenley, Hawkinge or several other places. In this case, the round has been fired as shown by the dent made by the firing pin in the primer but this could have happened any time before the V1s started coming in.
At some time, AA fire was only used inland and offshore firing at V1s (you ain't even gonna see a V2) was limited to over the sea.
By the way to avoid confusion, where I said 'phased out by 1943' I was referring to the Whirlwind not the 20mm cannon shells. These cannon were installed in the Whirlwind from day 1 whereas the Hurricanes and Spitfires originally had .303 machine guns.