Typhoon R8895 recovery, 1971

From my understanding the cannons were cut out and cleaned up, at some point pneumatic pressure was applied to one, and the action was found to be serviceable; the authorities got wind of this and dealt with it in the above manner! The large item on the left of the image is the complete cockpit tube structure, it was complete right down to the seat and harness.

Certainly looks like it. The bottom part of the explosion looks very convincing but the top half looks a bit odd. Maybe it’s just a poor reproduction: modern scan of a xerox copied newspaper picture? The explosion was proably just the ordnance. Note the cut marks on the wing ribs in the colour photo in post #15 (to remove the guns and ammunition?) and the lack of blast damage on those items. The large lump of frame to the left, not present in the b&w photo in post #15, must have been the scrap men’s haul. Such a pity.

Further digging on this one has revealed truth to the EOD story; what remained (post blast) was hauled off to the scrap man much to the delight of local fisherman who had been destroying their nets on the wreck for some time.:apologetic:

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Very interesting Foray, thank you for sharing! I was informed of the demolition by a member of the recovery team; but I’m a third party to the information so could be completely out to lunch! Your second image raises a question about what happened to the items which remained on site; did they slowly slip into the mud? It would be interesting to hear from a local resident, maybe one with a magnetometer!

I think it is just ‘bits’. The pieces in the first photo below were loaned to the embryo museum at Andrewsfield, later to become the Rebel Air Museum. Maybe they survived Rebel’s closure and someone may know where they are now? I’ve often wondered about the remains of yellow paint on some of those panels. As far as I know no pieces went to the East Essex Aviation Museum at Point Clear which wasn’t formed until 14 years after the recovery.
The Sabre engine was brought up with the wreckage. After the police had removed the ordnance I understood the remains were salvaged for scrap by the local marine community. The engine might have survived, but I have no idea what happened to it.
It is very unlikely that the wreckage was blown up by the Army/Navy. There would be no point. It lay well above low water mark and would just spread jagged metal over a wide area. The second photo shows the site in 1972, marked by two staves, cleared of all large metal bits and no sign of a crater in the mud. The larger pieces are the fuel tanks.
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It sounds like some bits have survived. Once brought to shore, the police were involved due to the ammunition in the wing; sadly the army was then brought in to blow up the remains.

I fully agree Elliott,
Even if there are still only bits of wing left that would help the Typhoon project immensly for patterns.
If you don’t look, then nothing will be found etc. etc.
Cees

I suspect there’s still a lot of it out there.

Ok back on topic, was the whole airframe there initially?
Cees

surprised to read that Typhoons were used on night intruder flights.

3(F) squadron certainly flew from Hunsdon in 1941 on night intruder sorties with Typhoons, they had also used their Hurricanes in the same role prior to that.

One was converted with AI radar for night fighter trials.

Slightly off topic but I was surprised to read that Typhoons (as in this case) were used on night intruder flights. Was this common?

The post war story of the Typhoon is almost as problematic as the early technical issues. Everything in sight was scrapped, aircraft, engine and airframe drawings; to add insult to injury, whenever surviving parts came to the light of day…..scrapped. The fact that this still happened into the 1980’s shocks me.

From memory not a huge amount was (or could be) brought ashore from the wreck which lay in the very sticky estuary mud off the village of Tollesbury.
Despite the best intentions of the scuba club when they got out to the site the sheer size of the beast coupled with the fact it was full of silt ultimately defeated them but it was dragged into shallower waters.
It was easily visible at low tide and as can be seen in the photograph became completely exposed with spring tides. The remains were eventually blown up by the Navy in the late 70’s early 80’s.
Quite a few wartime wrecks in the Blackwater/Colne estuaries, all pretty much trawled away by fishing boats now.

“Much of it soon deterioriated. Some bits were taken to East Essex Aviation Society Museum and Point Clear and some have found a resting place in homes on Mersea Island.”

Very interesting to see such a large part of a wing recovered. Many details could be gained from a close inspection if it’s survived.

An account of the incident can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/63/a2670563.shtml

Wonder what happened to it ?, looks like a fair sized chunk.