Spitfire crash landing in Scotland WW11
 

I originally posted this in the "nostalgia" page and was warned by resident posters that the thread was generally inhabited by AN,ORAKS as he put it.

Sadly he was correct. Can anyone here throw some light ?

About 24 years ago, a tall distinguished Canadian gentleman walked into my Photography Studio in the small Scottish Border town of Selkirk.

He asked me what it would cost to accompany him to a site a few miles out of town in the direction of Hawick close to the A7 near Dryden in order to take some photographs.

He related a strange tale to me about how he was flying a Spitfire in WW2, overshot Biggin Hill and crash landed out of fuel in that location. He survived the landing and made his way to the roadside.

He was given a lift to Selkirk where he had a beer in the County Hotel after which he made his way to the railway station. He boarded a train to Edinburgh where he eventually reported at RAF Turnhouse.

I was so intrigued by his strange tale that I offered to do the job for free. We agreed to meet the folowing day at 13.00 hrs.

I was so wired by his story that I started calling around the town to see if I could get some background. I called various farmers on the outskirts of the town, the local press and several old established pillars of the community, some of whom had vague memories of some kind of crash landing.

Pretty soon the story was circulating around the town.

The following day, the gentleman failed to turn up at the pre-arranged time. I called the hotel where he had been staying and they told me that after returning from dinner in the town the previous evening, he had advised that he would be checking out the following morning, several days ahead of plan.

I can only assume that he had got wind of the fact that his presence and story was creating a buzz in the town and felt a bit uncomfortable.

I have my own ideas of possible scenarios, overshooting Biggin Hill and landing in the Scottish Borders is not one of them !

If anyone in PpruneLand can help me explain this situation or point me to somewhere that can, I would be very grateful.

Even after 24 years, I cannot shake the story from my head.

To add. From Biggin Hill to the crash landing site is 310 miles as the crow flies. My understanding is that the Spitfire had a range of 395 miles .

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Interesting it may be, but I would love to get a possible interpretation of the event from some qualified responder.


Thanks
El G.

El Grifo

The range of a Spitfire varied between different Marks.

Spitfire Mk 2 500 miles on 85 Gallons

Spitfire Mk 5 470 miles on 85 Gallons

Spitfire Mk 7 660 miles on 120 Gallons

Spitfire Mk 9 980 miles on 175 Gallons

Errr... How bad a navigator do you have to be to overshoot Biggin and not realize you screwed up until you get to Scotland? That sounds a bit suspect to me...

This is exactly the angle I am coming from !

The fact that he left the town when the story started to get around left me more confused than ever.

I am skirting around my suspicions, but can anyone offer me a possible scenario or a location where I can dig out some facts

It's possible.

Lysander R9029 took off in 1940 from Tangmere to pick up agent 'Felix' from Fontainbleau in France. It ended up crashing 4 miles from Oban after running out of fuel in bad weather, although locals say it hit barrage balloon wires as well. That's more of an over run than from Biggin to the Borders ;) In this case, there was some mitigation though, as an enemy rifle round had shattered the compass in France and the pilot had to dead reckon navigate at night. The locals also say the pilot and agent were detained for several days as no one believed their story :)

10W:

I'm assuming, (and I know it's wrong of me to do so), that I can take the word "overshot" literally. That implies a "near miss" of sorts where he then continued to fly for some 300 miles. That's a long time to notice that you "overshot"...

The case of the Lysander is different IMO. No "near miss" is implied.

My father had a book about WW2 aircraft crashes in the Norfolk/Suffolk area. One of them was a Spitfire pilot who had taken off on a training flight down in the West Country, got lost and ran out of fuel over East Anglia.

Airborne, the exact words of the gentleman were "I overshot Biggin and run out of fuel"

The distance pans out at more or less 310 miles

AA, now I come to think of it overshot is different from overshoot. The latter implies after a landing attempt whereas the former is 'merely' flying on past your intended point.

We had a Sudanese student who miscalculated his eta at a turning point and overshot be a considerable distance.

In WW2 with very limited nav aids, and more so in a Spitfire, it is quite possible that once lost things just got worse.

To me it is a little harsh to criticise a pilot for an incident when the 'facts' of the case are contained in a single sentence.

If I had to assume anything (which I hate doing, but in the absence of facts some consider assumptions to be worthy alternatives) I would assume that he was attempting to get to a break in the weather having been unable to land at home plate. Loft in a small unservicability or NORDO and you have an aeroplane with very basic nav kit unable to go IMC.

Distance to crash from home plate would be dictated by fuel and extent of the cloud layer. The latter might have gone on for ever and the former, as we all know, doesn't.

This is opening up very nicely guys. Thank you.

Re-read my initail posting to see if you can pick up any more detail.

What I have written is exactly how it was.

I was in the shower and thinking... Dangerous...

There had to be some kind of Lost Procedure that he should have begun to follow sometime after realizing he was lost and a good time before he ran out of fuel.

I thought about IMC... There had to be a procedure for inadvertent entry into cloud too.

Radio calls. Couldn't we DF radio calls back then?

If he was VMC I'd suggest that London and the river Thames would be a pretty good "overshot boundary".

There's a lot of things that don't make any sense...

Not really an answer and probably confuses things further , but

"the exact words of the gentleman were "I overshot Biggin and run out of fuel"

Could he have said BIGGAR and not BIGGIN? (Biggar being 20 odd nm WNW of the supposed crash site.

100% absolute, BIGGIN !

I agree with that Airborne. That is why the story has stayed alive in my head for so long.

Would you consider any other scenarios ?

A "Walt" who did some research and then revisited the scene of the incident hoping to bask in some kudos and maybe blag some B&B and then fled the scene when he realised he had been rumbled?

No! This was a very sincere and humble person who fits perfectly the nomeclature of "gentleman".

Hence the reason why I used the term !

Thing is, we have become pre occupied with this post, with the flying range of the Spitfire. May I offer a slight diversity, the OP was questioning (my reading) why the alleged pilot failed to make the appointment at 13:00

1) We can presume the mystery person stayed at the hotel because we have evidence that the OP phoned the hotel and was given the information that the guest had booked out the next morning.

2) From past experience, if one stays at a hotel, one usually has dinner at the hotel. I find it strange that this person decided (or did he?) to take dinner in the town.

3) Did the OP ascertain the full name of this person, reason being, phoned the hotel and enquire the guest by name? ElGrifo, did you get this guys name?



Daz

Actually Selkirk is a very small Borders town and where he a was staying was to all intents and purposes, a B+B which did not offer evening meals.

He told me where he was staying and I knew the owner personally.

I am sure he introduced himself by name but that name has long escaped me.

When I called the hotel (B+B) I could have asked for him by name or I could have asked about "the Canadian Gentelman"

I have no reason to doubt his tale, he presented himself as a very polite, cultured, person. I remember his appearance to this day. Not the kind of person one would normally find around the town, very distiguished in appearance, tall, silver haired, shirt and tie, good walking brogues and a long poplin type raincoat, they type favoured by US and Canadian gents at the time.

The town of Selkirk does not really feature on the Tourist map. This fellows presence would not have escaped the notice of the populace.

Within a couple of days he would have become a talking point which in fact he did after my spate of enquiries.

An old farmer from the area had vague memories of a aircraft crash in the area, but could not really fill in any details.

It was only a few years after the event that this thing started to interest me. If I had made more enquiries at the time I might have uncovered more.

I have lived overseas for some 18 years now !

So we can agree this incident/meeting happened in 1988

1) "Told me where he was staying, and I know the owner personally" fine. I suggest you ask the owner (record keeping of hotel guest book has to cover the past 30 years) so give your hotel friend a call and get a name.

2) A Google does not suggest Poplin 'type' raincoats US/Canada/brogue shoes were the norm in 1988

Therefore my conclusion is.

1) This gentleman was a distraction thief, did you do a stock take after his visit?
2) A wind up of people on here.

I rest my case.

Daz

Thanks Daz, but no thanks !

This a serious enquiry, your glib treatment does it a dis-service !

El Grifo, no way am I'm disrespecting your op, just want a name, seeing this gentleman was know to you (did he not introduce himself) and your a good description of his attire, also the hotel he stayed at. Somewhere (hotel guest book) there must be a name for this guy!!!!!!!! Do a little digging at you pals hotel.

Daz

Back to my Regiment dinner.

I did correct myself and explain that it was more of a B+B.

It was run in those days by a 65 year old woman, to expect her still to have records is pure fantasy.

I have no recollection of the gentlemans name jusy a vivid recall of the event and how he looked.

Even now I can be introduced to somone and forget the name by the time I have drawn the next breath.

Enjoy your dinner !

To take another tack, a kindly soul has suggested that I ask the assembled company if somone could perhaps point me towards a site or location where I could find out which Spitfire Squadrons were based at Biggin Hill during wartime, after which I could check to see if any of their aircraft were lost over Scotland.

As my friend points out, there could not have been many !

Thanks

El G.

Au contraire:

A quick Google threw up 92, 72, 74 and 610 while these were based there is did not follow that your Spitfire was based there but might simply have planned to land there. 'He overshot' might also mean that Biggin was a turning point en route to another airfield perhaps with less sophisticated nav aids.

AA says could we not D/F in those days. I am not sure the R/T sets they had then had crystals to cover the whole of UK. It might be the case that once a short range fighter was out of his group area then he was unable to communicate.

We used to have an RAF Common - 117.9 and Flying Training had 115.56. Bomber had 135.95 IIRC but these were all post war freqs. If he had limited freqs available, may be 4, then he may have been out of contact.

Thanks Pontious.

My own search threw up the same information. What I meant was that not many aircraft from Biggin would have crash landed in Scotland, although that may be incorrect!

I take your point though regarding Biggin being a turning point, although I did get the impression that Biggin was the airfield at which he was planning to land.

Can you help me any further with this ?

There has been a lot of research done into wartime crashes, especially in the UK. I'd imagine there must be some record of it.

Perhaps a question here:

Historic Aviation - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums

might elicit some information. Some very knowledgeable chaps in the matter of Spitfires.

E-G,2 starting points; Was there any mention of any particular year that this happened ?If so there maybe records in the local `rag` archives.Likewise,I would have expected him to have `reported` to the local Constabubble`,so he could report a downed aircraft to the nearest RAF unit to provide guards etc,assuming that he had an armed aircraft/Verey pistol/personal weapons etc...You can`t just leave an aircraft lying about,and as he seems to have been `mobile`,then suggests it was more of a forced landing,rather than crash,ie with injuries.

...sniff - sniff - sniff.......
 

....pphhh........ yup...... definately some BS in that tale somewhere.... The man in the mac was probably P/O W.M.Itty. :rolleyes:

Is there any recovery records anywhere, as for overshooting, the first FW190 that came into our ownership was due to the pilot mistaking the Bristol channel for the English one.. the USAF also recovered a light aircraft that couldn't get into Paris because of weather, so headed for Le Touquet, but finally ran out of fuel and force landed in a ploughed field in Kent!

Had a quick scan through the 3 volumes of Fighter Command Losses last but couldn't see anything close to this incident. That could just as well be due to me missing it in the books, the Spirtfire at the time was not on charge with Fighter Command or some other reason.

I have no idea of the year in which this occured. At the time of the visit to my studio, I called the local press to see If they had any information. The newspaper has changed hands so many times over the years that records are very sketchy. I plan a visit to Scotland this year so I will have a serious go with them then.

As for the police, Selkirk was then and largely still is a one horse town.There may have been a Bobby on a bicycle

The gentleman simply told me he crash landed/ force landed the Spitfire on the top of a flat hill not far from the town, was un-injured and made his way to RAF Turnhouse to report in .

He stopped for a beer in Selkirk and then took the train to Edinburgh.

As I have said before, an old farmer near the site had vague memories of an event but could not give many details. Had I done some serious investigating at the time, I am sure I could have come up with answers. That is something I regret.

It was really only later that the story re-surfaced in my mind and I now live overseas. I do plan to do some real checking when I visit this year.

If anyone else can come up with any other leads I would be grateful.

It appears the subject is being discussed already with some flippancy on the site you suggested XV277. I think I will stick with Pprune !

Thanks
El G.

El G,

Have you investigated which Sqns were based at Turnhouse and attack it from that direction?

Duncs:ok:

El G

If the Pilot was Canadian then it is entirely possible that it was a RCAF aircraft which could mean that the RAF would not necessarily have a record of the crash.

Yep, this is getting complicated for sure. I reckon my best bet is when I go to Scotland in a few months and start from scratch.

I am 100% convinced that the guy and his story was authentic !

Based only on his appearance and bearing? So it looked like a duck and it quacked like a duck but it needs to walk like one before we can say it's a duck... ;)

Fascinating story, and some of the details sound very curious.

Selkirk may be a "small town" by southern standards, but it serves a large rural area. Historically it is a county town, the administrative capital of Selkirkshire, with its own Sheriff Court.

Until 1946 Selkirkshire had its own police force, now part of Lothians and Border Police, who still have a manned police station in Scotts Place Selkirk.

On that basis, it seems quite surprising for someone who ran a business in the town to say that "As for the police, Selkirk was then and largely still is a one horse town.There may have been a Bobby on a bicycle."

Doesn't need to be a Turnhouse based Spitfire. Not a million miles away was RAF Acklington in Northumberland. No72 Sqdn, Spitfire equipped was based for eight months in 1940, before departing for Biggin. No610 arrived from Biggin as 72 left, also Spitfire equipped, a Canuck could obviously be flying in the RAF at this time. It could (if true) be something like this that went pear shaped, but like others the original story seems 'odd' to put it politely ...

Bonjour caz - No it would be an RAF Spitfire. Although being in an RCAF squadron, possibly even an RCAF wing, it would have been an RAF-serialled Spit, so records would be in UK (in AHB, but that would be a lot of digging). Or as posted previously, he could have been RCAF but in an RAF squadron.

As a Souter you will know that landing on top of a flat hill near Selkirk narrows the search significantly. However, newspaper archives do exist. A lot of the local papers were grouped into the 'Southern Press'. You may have to bite the bullet and journey into Hawick to peruse the records. Beware the Teries.

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