No 74 Squadron Spitfire

Can’t be P9441 as Byrne bailed out and was picked up in the channel. There’s a slim chance of it being either K9957 or K9867. One was the first aircraft Bertie Aubert was shot down in and the other was the one Frank White landed at Calais-Marck, which is which is lost to history.

Looking in the book “The Battle for France, then and now” I came across the following possible candidate.

23/5/1940: P9441 flown by F/O D. BYRNE.

Regards, Cabbage

The soldier is in a Heer uniform so definitely not a forced landing on British soil. While flying Mk.Is, 74 record very few losses over French soil after Dunkirk and none of them fit the profile for this spit.

74 Sqn Mk.I losses over Dunkirk are as follows….

* F/O ‘Sammy’ Hoare’s P9321. Hoare force landed near Calais-Marck on 23.5.40. He returned to British lines, then caught a boat and rejoined his squadron. A very strong candidate but for the snag of the VHF aerial.
* Fl/Lt. ‘Paddy’ Treacy’s K9992, shot down over Dunkirk on 23.5.40. Treacy bailed out, so not this one. Treacy was later shot down in K9875 on 27.5.40.
* Sgt. Tony Mould’s K9952, Mould may have force landed. So another strong candidate.
* P/O Richard ‘Bertie’ Aubert’s N3243, shot down on same patrol as Mould and Treacy on the 23rd. What happened to him doesn’t appear to be well known. As he has no known grave, a forced landing doesn’t appear likely. Edit: As noted below Aubert was shot down twice in three days. His first FTR from the 21st is another possibility.
* Squadron Leader White’s unidentified Spit. This led to the ‘Calais-Marck Bounce’ where Al Deere and Johnny Allen of 54 Sqn earned DFCs. Frank White’s serial is not known for certain, the ORB fails to mention it, but he made a good landing at Calais-Marck and his Spit was positively ID’ed as ZP-J, so it’s not this one.
* P/O Peter Stevenson’s L1084. Stevenson managed to get evacuated and return to the Squadron in the UK within a week. Another possibility.

HTH

K9927, K9871, K9868, K9866 could be candidates?

Looks to have the pole type ariel, so one of the first 310 Spitfires…

http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/spitfire-masts-and-aerials.html

Hi, can’t see the serial number on the photo that you posted and can’t seem to be able to enlarge it to see better. No doubt someone will be along just now that can help. Nice photo though.