wanted: ID crashed a/c holland, May 1940

Intriguing. There does appear to be some discrepancies about this in various references I have.
Aircraft Crash Log(Nick Roberts 1979) has L6965 as lost on 24th August 1940, as does
Defiant File(Alec Brew 1996) but The Turret Fighters(Alec Brew 2002) mentions L6965 as lost on 13 May 1940.
So if this is correct then we have a mystery of which aircraft Gaskell & Machin were flying on 24th August.

Mark

Phoney baloney

Mark

Page 15 FCL Vol 1

According to Fighter Command Diaries 264 Sdq suffered 4 Cat E on May 13th.

Ian,

Apologies my error. I was reading 13th May 1940 on page 20. Battle of France rather than ‘phoney war’.

Mark

According to FCL.

No Defiant losses on 13 May 1940.

Mark

Mark

Page 15 FCL Vol 1

According to Fighter Command Diaries 264 Sdq suffered 4 Cat E on May 13th.

According to FCL.

No Defiant losses on 13 May 1940.

24th August 1940. L6965 Patrol. 264 Sqn. P/O R S Gaskell & Sgt W H Machin. Written off after combat with an Me109 of JG51 over Hornchurch 1600. Pilot slightly wounded; Sgt Machin died of his wounds.

Mark

Operations record 264 squadron

The operations record from 264 squadron reports for May 13, flying from Martlesham Heath, patrol The Hague, take-off at 04:15 hrs :
L6969 shotdown
L6960 shotdown
L6958 shotdown
L6977 shotdown
L6965 shotdown
L6974 landed at Knocke at 06:30 hrs.

According to the BoB website L6965 was lost 0n 24 August 1940 !!!! I’m at work does anyone have FCL close to hand who can confirm this ?

http://www.battleofbritain.net/0029.html

Defiant; it’s L6965

Friends,

Just went home for lunch and checked the book “Luchtgevechten boven West-Brabant en de Biesbosch”. Page 38 is showing exactly the same photo; the one with the two gentlemen.

The Defiant is L6965, having crashed on May 13, 1940 at the Hazeldonkse Zandweg in the village of Zevenbergen (that’s some 30 km S. of Rotterdam)

The crew, pilot A.M. McLeod (RAF42013) and gunner W.E. Cox both survived and were able to return to England.

The two gentlemen, standing next to the wreckage, on the photo are Mr. J. de Ridder and his nephew.

While you guys debate the relative merits of the tail flash colours and whether or not the film used was orthochromatic; it may be worth remembering that in 1940, the French carried their tail stripes almost invariably on the rudder and not the fin.
…geoff

“‘Einkels…” It’s almost certainly one of 264 Sqn’s aircraft, and Mark’s listing (with EN830s revision) seems the most likely candidates. Mark, what’s the definitive list for Defiant losses? Is Fighter Command Losses accurate? Cheers!

FCL list’s several Defiants as being lost or damaged during May 1940. From a quick flick through last night, it appeared that these were the most likely candidates. The rest appear to have come down in the sea or made it back to the UK.

Defiants

In May 1940 a couple of Defiants crashed in the province of Noord-Brabant; one in the “Biesbosch” and one near Oosteind, which is east of Oosterhout. There is a book, written by Mr. Jan Jolie from Oosterhout (NL), describing the Defiant battle.

BTW, there is a small monument near the Biesbosch-museum, and also near Oosteind, for those Defiants having crashed there.

Regards,

Benno (Rijen, NL)

“‘Einkels…”

“They’re Messerscmitts.”

It’s a Defiant, and you’ve failed your Battle of Britain recognition test chaps.

see here, my Defiant walkaround. Picture 5 shows the fin. Note the fairing between the fin and horizontal tailplane, and the radial jointing of the fin construction. Compare to the pic we’ve got here. Note also visible through the rudder the wing of the a/c and the windscreen to the left in the picture, by the boy’s elbow. Same a/c.

Under the wooden and fabric covered retractable fairings was a corrugated decking, seen here at the back (thin) end of where the wedge shaped fairing sat, now missing as Mk.12 surmised. Incidentally, that’s an RAF Day fighter fin flash. The ‘Life’ photos of the Squadron (one of which Mk.12 shows us earlier) show a range of fin flash and roundel styles in the aircraft formation. I’m with Flood on Pan rather than orthochromatic film in use here.

While the fuselage is a mess there’s enough evidence to show it’s a Defiant.
1. The windscreen. Curved frame.
2. leaning to the right, in the centre of the picture is the bulkhead just aft of the turret. It has a hole through it, and is a round edged inverted triangle; only the port and upper arms survive. Not often noted is the Defiant’s fuselage at the turret area was a ‘V’ section. I’ve seen the bulkhead inside N1671.
3. Part of the turret ring is visible just under the port quarterlight of the windscreen. Compare to the turret pics in my walkround.
4. The vertical corrugations in the wing are the spar webbing in the wing, which on the Defiant, unusually for the time, had corrugated sections in a number of places throughout the structure, including here. These are the ones in front of the main fuel tanks (which is why they are visible – the tanks have burnt out) and behind the main gear.

All of these items can be clearly seen in the John Weal Defiant II cutaway, published a number of times, including the article in Air Enthusiast 5. (This here is a Defiant I, but the differences are minor, and to do with the engine systems and a larger but similar looking tail.)

The guns were .303 Colt Brownings, exactly the same as the Spitfire and Hurricane were equipped with, and the look small unless you are carrying them!

So, it’s a Defiant. Interesting things. It’s not under guard by either Allied or German forces, and the guns haven’t been taken away. Could put it in the period when all hell had broken loose, and the armies had other things than guarding crashed aircraft to consider. What happened?

The pilot was killed. (No mention of the gunner.) One could have got out, baled out, or walked, as well as (sadly) probably being killed. The old gentleman’s recollection of the pilot may actually be the gunner – aircrew often become ‘pilots’ to civilians.

There’s no evidence of high vertical deceleration, or crushing, the prop blade we can see looks straight, but my be bent towards the camera. The aircraft has burnt out in the area of the fuel tanks, and broken aft of the turret, most of which isn’t visible, so was either burnt, or dragged away by rescuers. The turret when reduced to it’s component pieces, and after a fire, would be a load of little bits.

Why it broke aft of the turret rather than anywhere else, andwhat heppened, I don’t know. That area of fuselage is the construction break, so that’s a big clue. I’d guess (and it’s only a guess) a high speed semi-controlled crash landing, probably gear up. Aircraft breaks in half. Catches fire, or is fired by a surviving crew member. (Given the listed possible a/c had both crewmembers killed in action, or in one case both surviving, it looks unlikely that one crewmember survived.) It’s possible that the pilot had bailed out, leaving his gunner, it’s possible the gunner had bailed out (but not likely – very difficult). No, it wasn’t flying without a gunner for the operation.

Thanks for sharing Sonderman. Sad evidence of the Defiant’s nadir.

It’s almost certainly one of 264 Sqn’s aircraft, and Mark’s listing (with EN830s revision) seems the most likely candidates. Mark, what’s the definitive list for Defiant losses? Is Fighter Command Losses accurate?

Cheers!

On 13th May 1940, 6 Defiants of B flight of 264 Sqn were patrolling near the Hague. While attacking Ju 87Bs they were bounced by Bf 109Es. Five of the six Defiants were shot down against four Ju 87s and one Bf 109E.

Only 4 are listed in FCL

L6958
P/O Thomas, LAC J S M Bromley – Crashed south of Rotterdam

L6960
P/O G E Chandler LAC D L McLeish – also crashed south of Rotterdam.

L6969 ‘T’
F/Lt G Skelton, P/O Hatfield crashed in the Netherlands

L6977
P/O Greenhous, Sgt Greenhalgh, shot down over Dunkirk, crew survived and evaded.

On 13th May 1940, 6 Defiants of B flight of 264 Sqn were patrolling near the Hague. While attacking Ju 87Bs they were bounced by Bf 109Es. Five of the six Defiants were shot down against four Ju 87s and one Bf 109E.

The tail flash might well be the correct way round – if the film used was orthochromatic (I think). This would make reds and yellows dark and render blue to appear lighter. Here is an official picture of the first Harvard in the UK, N7000, in its overal yellow colour scheme where the black registration barely shows up and it appears to be wearing a French roundel.
Shades of grey, mate…

Flood

Thank you for all your replies!!
I spoke with the old man today and he gave some additional information,
he said that the pilot got killed and that the a/c came down south of Rotterdam. He also told me that the sticks they keep in there hands are the machine guns. I have been googling on dutch sites: could it be an aircraft from 264 sqn, I read that they lost some defiants the 12 of may 1940.

best regards,

Mathieu

. Also did the Defiant have wing mounted radiators, as it appears that just below the lad with the large stick that there are the remains of a starboard side wing mounted radiator..

Radiator or corrugated spar web?

Mark

Also did the Defiant have wing mounted radiators, as it appears that just below the lad with the large stick that there are the remains of a starboard side wing mounted radiator.

No, it had a central underside radiator like the Hurricane, which I think is what led the German fighter pilots attacking it to think it was that aircraft, until they got shot at!

I don’t doubt what has already been said, but is picture 1 the same aircraft as picture 2 ? If so there is not much left of (or any evidence) of the turret. Also did the Defiant have wing mounted radiators, as it appears that just below the lad with the large stick that there are the remains of a starboard side wing mounted radiator.

And as Mark say’s the tail flash appears to be French !!!! Even if the neg had been reversed this would still be wrong.

I’ve done a quick Google and thought this could in fact be a Dewoitine, but on further study I was wrong.

My first reaction is a Defiant. I assume some detachable rear decking has popped off to reveal the corrugated stressed structure beneath.

The puzzle for me is the ‘fin flash’. We know from previous discussions on the forum how misleading the interpretation of tonal values on WWII vintage b/w photos can be. The fin flash on the crashed machine seems to be Blue/White/Red, from the front, a la the ‘Frenchies’.

Here is a period comparative photo.

Mark

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Air Ministry.

DEFIANT (Sheesh…) 😉