Spitfire at Selsey?

Hi…A bit late but I read this thread with interest as I have been researching a CWGC grave in Littlehampton Cemetery regarding an incident between 2 Spitfires of 602 Sqdn and a Ju88 which crashed off Bognor on 19th August 1940.

It’s also possibly that this same Ju88 jettisoned it’s bombs over Selsey killing 3/4 civilians ?

A Spitfire was shot down during this action, but it now appears that this aircraft also crashed south of Bognor.

While searching for information, it appears another Spitfire crashed near Selsey on the very same day.

http://www.worldnavalships.com/directory/airframeprofile.php?FrameID=1766

Wade crash landed a Spitfire I (R6703) near Selsey after being shot down in combat over the Solent on August 19th 1940. His Spitfire I exploded but he escaped injury.

Could this be the one in question…?

Cheers

“During the film (between friends), there is a sequence where Payne plays a tune on the clarinet. They had hired this especially for the film, and at great expense… only to have Payne shot down in Hawker Typhoon PRV R7708 by British anti aircraft fire the very next day, 31st October 1942 He baled out, and the aircraft crashed into Pegwell Bay near Manston, (This aircraft was recovered on ? 1997 from deep in the mud about by the Hawkinge Battle of Britain Museum. Some of the parts, such as the engine, are earmarked for a Typhoon reconstruction by Councillor ? Smith, while others are on display at Manston) Wading ashore, he was then addressed in German, before being hospitalised with burns. Some postwar research indicated that he may have been shot down by a Spitfire, but Roy stated that “the flak near Dover was like rain, so no self-respecting Spitfire would have got in amongst that lot by choice.”

Roy converted Gunther Rall onto jets postwar apparently.

You are bang on the money, HP111. And folks don’t have to be over 80, either, to have faulty or unreliable memories of events. Something we all suffer from, quite apart from the variations in what one witness ‘saw’ as opposed to what others ‘saw’.

The recent Burmese adventure may yet have been a case in point.

Just a general comment on the reliability of witness accounts. I find that as people get older, particularly past, say, 80, their recollection of past events tends to become inaccurate. This means for instance that modern accounts from such a person of an event in WWII, in the absence of supporting evidence, now need to be treated as suggestion rather than fact. I appreciate that this may be a sensitive issue, there may be forumites I am referring to!

The items in the photograph seem to be German. At least, the l/h item is.

IIRC The Pagham Typhoon was that flown by Roy Payne of 609 Squadron. He was pissed off. AA crews shot him down and then when he waded ashore they addressed him in German. Roy survived the war and passed away 4th May 2005.

My Friend in Selsey has just sent me the following 2 images. The 3 items were given to him by another local. They are NOT from the Spitfire site but another site in the area. They were found by some Polish workers last weekend who are digging drains.

My best guess is they are Luftwaffe but what Aircraft. How many more sites like this are in the area?
Any information would of course be more than welcome……

If the parts were recovered near the junction of Park lane and the Chichester Road then they may belong to the Ju 87 that crashed there in Agust 1940

Spitfire at Selsey

Is the site at the junction of Park Lane and Chichester Road? A Ju 87 crashed there in 1940 and is recorded in the Fighting Cocks book

Selsey

Do you know where the crash site is located at Selsey? I could not find the pix. A Ju87 crashed at the top of Park Lane in 1940 across the Selsey road

My Friend in Selsey has just sent me the following 2 images. The 3 items were given to him by another local. They are NOT from the Spitfire site but another site in the area. They were found by some Polish workers last weekend who are digging drains.

My best guess is they are Luftwaffe but what Aircraft. How many more sites like this are in the area?
Any information would of course be more than welcome……

first pic is a German magneto selector – I think – deffo German anyway.

Please forgive me taking this thread off at a tangent, but it occurs to me that those of you with Selsey connections who have posted on this thread may have some knowledge of the matters recounted at http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=1881.0.

It was less than four years earlier, on 20 December 1936, that Irene Schmeder put her Morane Saulnier MS.340, F-AMOP, down at Selsey, after her escape from France, and was taken in at Mill Farm before being arrested and extradited to France to stand trial for attempted murder.

Despite her brief sojourn there, Irene Schmeder evidently developed a relationship with its inhabitants as she returned, following her trial, the amnesty and her discharge from custody, in February 1938 to attend the wedding of the daughter of Mr Wakely of Mill Farm.

If any of these details ring bells with you, IFF and mculverh, or with your contacts and relatives, I’d be very glad to hear from you. In this event, perhaps you’ll send me a PM rather than take this thread further still on a tangential course!

this is such an interesting thread,

I can’t believe how dedicated you are Andy it must be very satisfying,

My uncle then a farmer working at Mill Farm told me that he witnessed a Spitfire crash on nearby Medmerry Beach of a Spitfire probably in 1942. As a child I remember playing on the blocks at the top of the beach where he said the crash occurred but I have no recollection of seeing any wreckage at the site.

In 1944 while working the fields near the gasworks he witnessed a Typhoon probably attempting to Reach the nearby ALG belly land in a field. The sergeant pilot emerged unharmed, asked my uncle where the nearest Canteen was located and set of on foot for a cup of tea!

And another Selsey Crash site

My Friend in Selsey has just sent me the following 2 images. The 3 items were given to him by another local. They are NOT from the Spitfire site but another site in the area. They were found by some Polish workers last weekend who are digging drains.

My best guess is they are Luftwaffe but what Aircraft. How many more sites like this are in the area?
Any information would of course be more than welcome……

Selsey

Has anybody written anything on Selsey ? I am just thinking it would make a nice little history….. Now if I get the time……

Selsey…

Thank you again… Does anybody know if Norton Field was in any sort of use during the BOB ? It was an ALG in 1944 but had been an Airfield during the 1930’s. I have attached a couple of photos to show it in now and then style.

I have most of the History but not in the early War years. It was known as RAF Selsey and appears as such on AM maps.

Interesting point!

Any comment, Mark12?

Hi, not anywhere near an expert on this, but one thing that occurred to me was if it is R6703, am I correct in thinking this was a Supermarine built Mk1, so the ‘ch-Aeroplane Factory’ dataplate fragment would be inconsitent for this aircraft? (it was pretty new when it was lost, so any rework or parts swaps would have been low I would have thought?)

IFF

I am as sure as I can be that this is the only 1940 Spitfire crash in the vicinity. I have been through all other possibilities in terms of different types and other years, and also Hurricanes in 1940, but am convinced the only Spitfire in that locality is the one I have given you. When I dig out my transcripts of the official reports I will send you the map reference. You can then tell me how closely that ties in to your location.

Yes, the Typhoon was recovered many years ago. I was there! The USAF pulled it out with a Jolly Green Giant and, on one occasion, we were rescued by RN Wessex when we got cut off by the tide!!! :rolleyes: Unfortunately, the party leader got his tides wrong and added on (or subtracted) an hour, and had then compounded the problem by forgetting that it was the Sunday when the clocks changed. Doh! I have never been more pleased to see a helicopter, I can tell you.

Selsey

Just as a matter of interest. Did a group get the Typhoon out of the mud or give up? I seem to remember press reorts about it at the time. I know the ALG at Selsey had a claim to fame as one of it’s Aircraft shot down a JU88 the first on D-Day He was a NZ Pilot.

Also has any attempt been made on the 1944 Spitfire in the area?

Thanks again……