AA, ok 100% convinced is taking things a bit far.

What I meant really is that the entire demeanour of ther man left me with the firmest impression that he was a person on a pilgrimage to revisit a major event in his past life.

I think it is not too difficult to assess in ones mind pretty quickly whether someone is genuine or not. He walked like a duck, talked like a duck and to me he really was a duck, to use your parlance !

Selkirk can without a doubt be accurately described a one horse town (apart that is from one day in June every year)

A business associate of mine once described it more accurately as a "Chip Shop Town" Go Figure !

The crash or landing or whatever one would like to call it took place near Dryden on a low long flat hill .

I will without doubt be visiting the local press on my return to Scotland and also asking questions at the local constabulary.

Dear McGoonagall, being a palemerk I have no fear whatsoever of the Teries, if local knowledge is to be believed, they fled frae Flodden after all :ok:

If the gentleman concerned was from RAF Ackilngton, why would have gone to Turnhouse after his crash?

Or am I missing something?

Duncs:ok:

I have a plausible explanation:-

The old gentleman was confused. No matter how strongly he believed he overshot Biggin he overshot somewhere else.and ended up where he did. The memory will do odd things to someone who wasn't brought up in the country when they try to remember things many years ago. I experienced similar in a discussion here about Salamanca camp in Belize. I knew Belize pretty darned well when I was there. But twenty years later I couldn't remember where Salamanca was in the country... I could picture the actual camp but had no idea where it was in the country.

Reminds me of an elderly gentleman in Heysham, Lancashire who always repeated the same story in the pub
That as a WWII flying boat (Sunderland?) pilot off the Cumbrian coast he'd been attacked by a Ju-88. The story was that he'd managed to evade, get down to Morecambe Bay and then fly up the River Lune at low level. He was followed by the Ju-88 - who didn't see the power lines across the Lune feeding the refinery at Heysham. He got the flying boat under the wires, but the Ju-88 crashed into them. He ended the engagement by motoring up the river to Lancaster and going for a pint in one of the pubs on the quay.
Sounds farfetched. Yet he repeated this story just about every night, time and time again until I'm sure he believed it. I asked around, no-one local had ever heard of the event and no-one believed it. I'm sure an event of that type would have been noted, but noone knew anything.
Yet this old chap was convinced it had happened - almost every night he would recite with consistent detail of how he'd beaten the Ju-88
I'm sure that through the repeated story telling he had convinced himself of the truth.

Or perhaps even making a light hearted remark about 'overshooting Biggin'

I think it may be me who is missing something ! RAF Acklington ????

AA, anything is possible.

I think I will give up for now before this thread goes the way of many threads on Pprune.

Thanks to those who have made an effort to help both on the thread and by PM.

If any real information turns up after my visit to Scotland I shall make it known

El Grifo

I introduced Acklington in that Spitfire squadrons that went to Biggin and came from there operated from Acklington, so there could be a futher reason for a 'Biggin' based/bound Spitfire being in the area. I missed:uhoh: EG's post that stated the gent went to Turnhouse to report in afterwards.

This site is pretty good regarding losses in the borders area
Aircraft and Airmen losses in North East England

Nothing immediately fits the bill in their listings.

180 degree navigation errors are not uncommon using the P series of compass which reqire the 'T' to be set up to steer a course. In the dark or times of high workload, it is possible. I've seen it more than once while instructing on the Chippy.

http://aircraft-cockpits.com/ww2uk/6...e-P10-full.jpg

It's interesting, (to me at least), that there have been some threads here about the Military forum becoming "diluted" and "off course" by the influx of ex and non military types... I think this thread is a perfect example of why those who think that are sometimes wrong.

This thread has an undoubtedly military aviation core that has had input from many people of differing backgrounds that have offered various "solutions". If nothing else, it has made those who got involved, (and, I'm sure, many who didn't), think about the story and what might have happened.

There are many threads here that bring huge benefit to this community - they don't all start with serving aircrew talking about current events...

'Nuff said...

El- G,
You seem to be remarkably sensitive!
It is not clear who you are addressing in your last post
- but AA's post is firmly in support of your thread and the varied contributions to it .
If you are referring to AA's post I suggest you read what he said again and thank him for his support !

Stop Press !
 

neilf92, you are 100% correct and I apologise unreservedly for my misinterpretation of AA's posT.

My only excuse is that I am so fixated by my quest that the first thing I do when I crawl out of bed in the morning is check for updated info.

This is exactly what I did this morning. Note to onself Drink Coffee and Engage brain prior to reading Pprune posts and replying !

Thankfully AA wil still be in the land of nod although I will pm him later by way of an apology.

Thanks very much for pointing out my faux-pas.

Apologise for the slight thread drift.

In jumpseaters post #47, he has a link to a web site showing aircraft losses in the North East of England.

Looking through the list, not one Lancaster bomber crashed in that area.

Is that unusual considering most other planes are listed ?

The good news is that the local press in the Scottish Borders are picking up the story, so progress might finally be made !!

Go for it Mark !!!!

Perhaps a pointer. Eshott Airfield just west of Acklington was a training base for Spitfires from 1942. Eshott was also known as Bockenfield Aerodrome. Bockenfield in a Canadian accent may have been confused for Biggin Hill.

Anything is worth considering and is entirely possible that the gentleman himself was confused, although he was as clear and concise as anyone could be in his story.

He did however, say more than once, Biggin Hill !

Thanks
El G.

An interesting point was put to me today in respect of the contributers who consider the fellow to be a fake.

Why did he want me to accompany him to the site to shoot pictures.
How could this be the basis for a scam ?

The insurmountable problem with overshooting Biggin Hill and ending up in Selkirk is that fact that he'd have to have overflown about 400 active wartime airfields to end up in a pretty remote area at that time. That pretty much leaves the only reasonable explanation that he was IFR the entire time.

Still, given the cruising speed of a Spitfire is about 250MPH/220kts, it shouldn't have taken him over an hour to realized he'd overshot, even with a tailwind!

I strongly suspect either there was a lot more to the story or he was, to use the wartime phrase, "shooting you a line."

A seriously intriguing tale, and one that has clearly got a lot of people, me included, thinking about the possibilities.

For me the oddest thing about the Canadian gentleman's story is what he did after the crash. Yes, if he'd made it into Selkirk he could have caught a train. Selkirk served as the terminus of the Selkirk and Galashiels Railway, which until 1951 carried passengers to connect with the Edinburgh and Hawick Railway: and from there he could have travelled to Edinburgh.

But would he have done? He had left a Spitfire on a hill, a valuable (if bent) military asset which was presumably fully armed and therefore dangerous to anyone who stumbled across it. OK, his first port of call might conceivably have been for a pint. But would he not have supped this while waiting for the recovery team to arrive in response to his phone call to his base, or Turnhouse? He would surely at least have contacted the local police to have them guard the plane to protect it and local residents.

And "them" it would certainly have been. As baffman has already noted, Selkirk was not a one horse town, though I'd not testify to the number of chip shops. At the time it was the county towm of Selkirshire, and was and remains home to a Sheriff Court. As such it was and is the focal point of a fairly large rural community.

Moving on, did you get any sense of what the gentleman wanted you to take photographs OF? Let's assume the site was somewhere in the area between the farm at Dryden Greenhill and the loop of the A7, north of Dryden. You'd have arrived some four and a half decades late on the scene of the crash. If there were any physical remains the crash would certainly feature in the online or printed literature about aircraft wreck sites, and it seems not to. So what did he actually want you to photograph? A bare hillside or hilltop seems hardly worth his effort or yours.

I am the first to admit this is a very strange story.This is why it has remained very much alive in my head for so long.

The gent in question, as I have already said, was a dignified, well dressed, erudite Canadian, who had clearly made his way to Selkirk to re-visit a scene of a wartime drama, if he was to be taken at face value.

I talked to him for a period of time. and I took him at face value.

He had already visited what he told me was the site and wanted to return with me to shoot some pictures of the area along with the views and presumably with him in some of the shots. We never got as far as that. We discussed possibility, location, cost, along with why he wanted the shots taken. Bear in mind, an old farmer from the area had memories of some kind of incident involving an aircraft during WW11.

The local press have now taken up the story so perhaps some new light will be thrown on the situation.

Whatever one might think about Selkirk nowadays and regardless of it's status, during wartime it was probably less than a one horse town with the bulk of men away at war.

If this person was as disoriented and confused as he would have been if he had been involved in such a trauma, it is hardly surprising that he wanted to return as fast as possible to his "own"

The reason why he found himself in such a situation my have contributed.

If you can thing of a better reason why a person of this calibre would travel a long distance to a little borders town to pay someone to photograph an empty field, then please enlighten me.

He was not senile, he was not doddery, he was exactly as I have described him several times.

What I am hoping for here, is that someone with closer access to records and a greater understanding of WW11 fighter operations can turn up some details.

There is already one possible lead that is being investigated and as I say The local press have taken up the story.

I hope we can get somewhere with this situation.

Thanks for all of the input.

El G.

There was the case of a covert Lysander overshooting Biggin on return from France and ending up in Scotland I believe

We have now pretty well established where the gentelman was staying at the time he visited me. Enquiries are ongoing right now.

Trouble is, we are talking about a period between 1983 and 1987 or thereabouts. Will memories or records stretch that far back ?

In jumpseaters post #47, he has a link to a web site showing aircraft losses in the North East of England.

Looking through the list, not one Lancaster bomber crashed in that area.

Is that unusual considering most other planes are listed ?

Not when you look at the dates listed, the Lancaster was introduced to service in 42, I suspect that in the 43-45 lists (not visible) there may be a few, though a google search of lancaster/crash/northumberland doesn't bring any up.

Thanks Jumpseater.

Ironic that the other night after reading this, the TV program "Heartbeat" had the episode on about a crashed Mosquito where the dig found a piece of the plane and they ended up finding the crash site.

.

Looking at the story another way can the phrase ‘crash landed’ be another term for ‘force landed’.

This chap gets airborne from Biggin and runs straight into low stratus with tops at about 5/600 ft. and then has a radio failure. The teaching at that time was that if one was lost above low stratus one aimed for higher ground. He was a Canadian and would not have realised that his best bet was west towards the Chilterns and Salisbury Plain; he turned north/northwest to the middle of England.

It was not working out but he still had plenty of fuel and by setting coarse pitch and +½ lb boost he would have had a fair amount of time. However, once he had cast his die then he was strapped with it so he had to continue, and he did, for over an hour; then the cloud started to break up underneath him.

He was now looking for an airfield and then he saw a long field that was not an airfield but possibly a relief landing ground. He now, because his fuel was running out, had a choice between bailing out or landing it. He was scared of stepping out of a serviceable aircraft so he landed; and he got away with it; completely undamaged.

As there was nobody around, being a Canadian, he went downhill because you will reach either the sea or a city. He got a lift into Selkirk and was taken to the Police Station where he would have told them what had happened. Not without some difficulty, especially if the sergeant had come from Glasgow. However they would have told the RAF and assured him that they would look after the aircraft because the bloke who had given him a lift had told them were it was. At the same time they would have decided that Turnhouse, being the biggest, was the best place for him to go so they gave him a railway warrant to get there. With the warrant came the directions to the pub so that he could wrap himself around a pint until the train came; and off he went.

Later on a truck arrived with a load of RAF bods. They set up camp by the aircraft and the truck went back with the information as to what state the aircraft was in. The next day a Queen Mary plus a crane lorry arrived. They lifted the spitfire, retracted the wheels, removed the wings and slotted the assemblies into a ready made cradle on the Queen Mary. They then drove of to the nearest Aircraft Repair and Recovery Unit.

Over the next day or so the aircraft would have been fully checked over and then it would have been earmarked for reissue. Eventually a young ATA girl would have flown it to an operational unit to be taken on by a squadron.

Next day it was shot down.

Somewhere in the halls of admin some scribbler is writing an official report on the whole saga. He gets a telephone call.
“Do you know that Spit that you are writing a report on has been lost?”
“No, I didn’t; thank you.”
Picks up report plus all the paperwork involved with it and slides them into the waste paper basket.

End of story

That sounds very plausible; however, Selkirk is over 300 miles from Biggin. Is that an hour's flying for a Spitfire with the power settings you mention?

Sensible interpretation Fareastdriver !

He did however say that he run out of fuel.

There would certainly be no one around.

He made no mention of the police

Geographically the pub or hotel in question was the first thing he would have encountered on reaching the town, after which he would make his way a mile or so downhill to the railway station.

Tha fact that he walked away suggests the the arcraft was not too badly beat up.

I have no idea why he failed to turn up the next day or why he checked out of his diggs a few day early. I only know that it was after his dinner and drink in a hotel in the town after visiting my studio and after the story started to circulate around the town.

In Selkirk, news travels faster than broadband. it always has !

From what I understand if he had taken off from Biggin, his subsequent flight must have been pretty short to allow him enough fuel to make the proceding 310 mile flight to Selkirk (or Dryden)

Brilliant FED. Totally feasible.

Now who can we get to write the screenplay and sell it to Hollywood?

Cruise could play the Canadian. We would need a love interest, so.......

Ah, it's time for my medication again. :ok:


Seriously, this thread is becoming quite addictive. A real whodunit.

It sounds very similar to a story told to me by an American ex Eagle Squadron Pilot,at Biggin Hill Air day where I was part of the Display.He had landed at Turnhouse(Edinburgh),after having taken off from Duxford.The Briefing Officer, had given them a QDM to set on their P11 compass ring with which they could fly back to the English Coast from their sortie,assuming a Wind direction and speed as given by the Met Officer.If the wind had changed significantly from the time of the early morning briefing,as happens,a strong southerly could end up with an aircraft well over the north sea tracking towards Flamborough head and then Scotland,instead of a track to Biggin.Furthermore in the language used,an "Overshot" does not necessarily mean a landing/overshoot,but more likely an "overfly" based on elapsed time.Based on the similar story from an unaquainted pilot,the American,it is perfectly feasible and probably not uncommon to end up in Scotland!!!!After an adrenalin rush and having survived a few minutes of combat,plus the shakes,put yourself in his position.At the early stages of solo cross country flying,how many "Wrong Way Robinsons" have you come across??I have met quite a few ,humble enough to admit it!!!!

This has always lain at the heart of my belief !

All very believable. I nearly turned onto a TAS instead of a hdg once on the LL link route (remember that) - which would have taken me and my JP to central London (I'd probably have noticed that!).

Like the idea of a film! Kate Winslett as the ATA pilot/love interest - after all, she used to have a Nav as a father-in-law! ;)

Too late !

The lady from the B+B in question, although mature in years, has already signed on the dotted line for that particular role :ok:

Eventually a young ATS girl would have flown it to an operational unit to be taken on by a squadron. - FED

Like the idea of a film! Kate Winslett as the ATA pilot/love interest - after all, she used to have a Nav as a father-in-law! - Teeters

If my my dear departed friend Rita, with 47 different types flown during her ATA days, will forgive me, I prefer the original "ATS girl" option - much more exciting!

Jack

PS Wonderful stuff, El Grifo - as someone who spent much of his childhood in the Border hills, more power to your elbow:ok:

Well, "The Southern" is on the case and they already have been in touch with the B+B lady who is currently scanning both her memory and her records.

They tell me that they have had similar success in the past with aviation stories of this nature.

Keep up the research and suggestions though people !

E-G, you mention in post #58 that the gent ` had already visited the site before he spoke to you`...Did he say how he had got there..? had he a hire car../ local taxi..? bus?..also ,as the train does not now run to Selkirk,how did he get there in the first place?
It is also rather amazing that some `40 yrs` after the event,he is able to return there,so the site must be fairly `unique` in terms of features/accessibility/buildings nearby...
The nearest Spitfire crash site that I found in `High ground wrecks &relics` refers to a Spitfire MkII P8587,which crashed on Bellyside Hill 25/3/43 ; that is close to The Cheviot (a very `Piggin Hill`),and was from Eshott,57 OTU..But that`s the other side of Jedburgh,some 25 miles from Selkirk..

My intensive research leads me to believe that the gentleman in question was in fact Lord Lucan, who rode to Scotland on Shergar, with the Holy Grail tucked under his arm.

HB

If you read my posts you will already have had a full report of our conversations. At no time did he tell me what mode of transport he used.

Although I described Selkirk as a one horse town, it does have paved roads and a bus service.

He could have reached the town an many manner of ways.

Perhaps he had a hire car, I have no idea.

Guess you missed this belly landing then !

Glentress, Peebles.
25 June, 1944. EP276, FLS, (Flight Leaders School),a Spitfire V I belive. Listed as, "Ran out of fuel, belly-landed." Another ref' states, "Engine cut, crashlanded."

Or:-
37MU 15-6-42 611S 1-7-42 65S 16-9-42 FAAC 16-9-42 ros 52OTU 14-2-43 FAAC 27-7-43 VA Aston Down FLS 2-2-44 wheels up landing Glentrees Peebles CE 25-6-44


Grateful for your research HB, but I think you are possibly mistaken. Do not let that stop you from further research. Any input is welcome !

Out of the mouths of babes and infants etc etc :ok:

And that's precisely why I'm a little skeptical. A nav error that great would surely have ended up crew room banter and would almost certainly earned a note in the ORB, Just like the Lysander story. At the very least, someone would've heard of it or a story like it.

Also, locals tend to remember such things occuring, even after all this time, so it's suprising to me El Grifo seems to have drawn a blank from the older residents of Selkirk.

Jackpot
 

The Borders newspaper, or to be more accurate, one of their top guys went at this like a dog at a rabbit.

We now have a name, lot's more detail, a potential contact overseas and more info on the crash site.

Out of respect to the local newspaper who have probably cracked this, I have agreed to hold information until publishing date on Thursday .

Thanks guys !

PS. Sadly, nothing on Shergar though :ok:

One of the RCAF 416 squadron pilots?

Not got a squadron just yet, but have reason now why he landed where he did.

Some of you have got it pretty well right !

Remember one of their Pilots landed an FW190A at Pembrey thinking he had crossed the Channel back to France,plus one landed at Manston,same difference!If you are not thinking straight,plus your instruments may be toppled,as only the Germans had electric fully rolling horizons,you could end up anywhere having misread your awkward P11 Compass,above cloud.I seem to remember back inthe 60s,that if you were caught above cloud you let yourself down out at what you hoped was out at sea,and turned east or west depending which side of the country you were,and found landfall,working your way to a known?land point then finding your way back to base without asking for a practice fix.That was how they had to do it 20 years earlier.Definitely not so improbable,when you add adrenalin and fuel constraints.