Cockpit

Correct aircraft type (I must be predictable) but these aren’t of the Duxford cockpit.

second pic

Another…

Lefty Whitman

Neil,

EK217 QO-N 7/7/43 Sgt G A Whitman destroyed in landing accident Tangmere

JP594 13/9/43 Sgt G A Whitman Ditched on Air Sea Rescue

Do you know if Sgt Whitman is still around? Would be interesting to know more information about 594.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Dave

609 Typhoon

I’ve scoured the books that I have and I think that it couldbe narrowed it down to 2 aircraft, assuming that this was an operational loss. As you say snapper there is DN560 P/O Baldwin 25/3/43. The books do not say that he ditched though what do the squadron records say? The other good possibility is JP745 PR-L. P/O T.S.Turek. He was picked up after ditching off the coast of Dieppe. The only inconsistency is that there were 2 days before he was picked up. Sydney Hansons account seems intially to indicate that it was after they landed that a phone call was received…however if you read it again you could think that it was a couple of days after the incident. Again snapper what do the squadron records have to say on this one?

609 Typhoons…

R7708 and Roy Payne were another one of those ditchings that weren’t really ditchings. According to Roys son he pulled up to about 600ft and bailed out, everyone who bails out got a badge from the parachute manufacturers in recognition that their product saved the pilots life and he still has this tucked away.

The wreckage was recovered in the late 90s, found by accident when looking for a Spitfire, with a remarkably complete Sabre Engine. The engine just looked as though the exhaust stubs were slightly bent. The wreckage was passed onto Peter Smith (has 2 Typhoon cockpit sections and lots of other parts) and even though there weren’t any particularly large parts of R7708 he is using this ID as one of his cockpit sections (EJ922 from Brownhills is the other section).

609 Typhoons

This has intrigued me now, the books tend to simply tell you that the aircraft ditched and not the detailed information that the squadron records have. I will have to dig through my other books tonight. It could of course not be directly around the UK coast. Looking at nautical maps it seems as though the channel (for the most part) is fairly shallow. I will have to find all the 609 Typhoons for 43 that may fit the bill.

Submerged Typhoons…

I have been researching ditched Typhoons for a while now…the UK coast is littered with Typhoons (and other types of course) that ditched and then sank seemingly complete!!!. The problem is of course finding where they drifted to whilst sinking and then finding them after they have had 60 years to move around. The classic example is of another 609 squadon Typhoon that ditched just off the beach at deal (it was in the JP serial range but can’t remember the full serial off the top of my head) . It was the first forray over Germany for a Typhoon as it was the squadrons only long range aircraft at the time. He got shot up by flak and managed to get back to the UK coast before ditching…he walked ashore. A few years ago I started looking into this but later found out that the hulk was dragged further out to sea and now lies under a wrecked fishing vessel…not sure if this was to put me off but without deciding to spend the funds searching for that particular one then I guess I will never know, I need something a little more optimistic before I will start the serious search!!