Can anyone give me information on the Mk I Spitfire downed locally to me in September 1940. The aircraft was unearthed a couple of years ago by a farmer in Howbourne Lane, Buxted, Sussex and the story was covered very vaguely by a local newspaper, but the details were somewhat sketchy.
There have been no further reports as to wether this Spit is going to be fully unearthed at any time and my own digging for information has come up with no response locally.
By: Emma - 15th December 2004 at 23:18
I agree, a very delicate subject and I appreciate the information. I shall pay my respects tomorrow on behalf of the grateful among us and visit the location with some quiet thoughts.
By: Mark12 - 15th December 2004 at 21:01
X4035 – Pilot Officer “Scotty” Gordon
Hello Emma,
It was X4035.
I was invited to photograph and participate on this dig.
The MoD were frankly being ‘economic with the truth’ re the report in the Lewes Today.
A delicate area but there were substantial human remains on this site and they were removed immediately with due reverence and respect, placed some distance away in a secluded area under a tree and the relevant authorities advised immediately.
There was a full page report in the Times on 3 June 2003.
Mark
By: Emma - 15th December 2004 at 19:50
Yes, I have found it referenced both as 4036 and 4035 on another site. This such site saying that there is a possibility that the pilot escaped. Where will I find a conclusion on this matter if one has been reached yet?
By: von Perthes - 15th December 2004 at 17:30
From ‘lewestoday.co.uk’
Spitfire find upsets family
NATIONAL press reports that the body of a wartime pilot had been found at a crash site near Buxted have sparked compensation claims from family members and anger from the Ministry of Defence.
A full-page story in Tuesday’s Times said amateur aviation archaeologists found human remains when they dug up the wreckage of a Spitfire in fields near Howbourne Lane on Saturday.
RAF investigators arrived on site on Wednesday morning to resolve the mystery surrounding the final resting place of 20-year-old Pilot Officer William ‘Scotty’ Gordon.
Horrified nephews and nieces thought he had been buried during the war in Mortlach cemetery near his home in Dufftown, Scotland where his remaining sister, Elizabeth Gordon who died last year aged 72, had tended his grave.
But a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said claims that Pilot Officer Gordon’s remains lay in the plane were ‘cruel and nonsensical.’
Ministry officials were furious that relatives were now claiming compensation for pain and grief caused by the uncertainty over his whereabouts.
She explained: ‘Without being indelicate, when a plane crashes you don’t find whole bodies – but we must recover a proportion of the remains in order to send a coffin home for burial.
‘Pilot Officer Gordon rests in that cemetery.’
She said the so-called recent ‘find’ consisted of a two-inch square of fabric and perhaps a miniscule amount of human bone or tissue.
‘This is not unheard of when a plane goes down in wet ground.’
Former Ghurka officer Colonel Malcolm Campbell lives at nearby Howbourne Farmhouse and explained a new landowner had given permission for the dig.
He crossed half-a-mile of fields and a stream to visit the site on Saturday.
He told the Express: ‘They dug down about 15 feet or so; all I saw was a sheet with a few pieces of tangled metal lying on it.
‘There was no sign of any human remains.’
The aviation buffs, from Hastings, were given full MoD consent to excavate the crash site; the RAF spokeswoman said: ‘In accordance with their licence they handed in what they found to a local police station.’
The Brighton coroner’s office confirmed the matter was now under the jurisdiction of colleagues in Hailsham.
William Huw Gibson Gordon was 20 when the Spitfires of 234 Squadron were attacked by Messerschmitts at 24,000 feet.
The Squadron claimed eight enemy kills. Pilot Officer Gordon was the only casualty of the day – just days before the end of the Battle of Britain.
Wing Commander Bob Doe remembers his comrade ‘Scotty.’
‘We knew each other well although we were not close friends – he was a quiet, retiring chap.’
Mr Doe, 83 – now Britain’s highest scoring living Battle of Britain pilot – remembers the battle over East Sussex in which ‘Scotty’ died.
He recalls trying to avoid the yellow-nosed Messerschmitts and concentrate on shooting down a Dornier bomber.
05 June 2003
‘The Battle of Britain, then & now’ gives the Spitfire as being X4036, but ‘Spitfire the history’ has it as X4035! Perhaps somewhere in the past, a ‘5’ has been read as a ‘6’? The date of the Spitfire crash was the 6th September 1940.
Geoff.
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December 15, 2004 at 3:03 pm