Heinkel 111 – Lifstan Way crash.

My father, a young teenager, on August 30th 1940 was with a friend in Southend when they saw a Heinkel 111 bomber with its port engine on fire heading towards them very low being shot at by two spitfires. The bomber circled Southend with the spitfires taking turns to shoot at it and it eventually crashed in Lifstan Way in Southend close to my father and his friend. An incendiary bomb was ejected during the fight and scored a direct hit on my Grandfather’s aviary (their meagre war ration was supplemented by racing pigeon for a few weeks). My father rushed home for a wheelbarrow and tried to cart away one the aircraft’s tyres, which intrigued them as it had ‘Dunlop’ embossed on it! Two crew managed to bail out of the Heinkel and were captured but three other crew members unfortunately died in the crash.

We still have the tail end of the incendiary in our possession.

I have a number of photographs taken of crashed wartime aircraft around Southend but I hadn’t seen some of the photographs of the Heinkel in the previous post. Can you tell me where these came from?

PS. I also have a whole folder of photographs taken at Southend Airport in the 50’s and 60’s if anyone is interested – nice Vikings, Bristol Freighters and DC4’s etc.

Graham Mee