Yes that is true. Our local Herald Express, early 1990’s published Luftwaffe reconnaissance photos of Torquay. Brixham. and Newton Abbot station amazing quality as I remember. (These locations were bombed. FW190 Tip and run raids mainly)
We visited the crash site of an BF109 reconnaissance aircraft of which the camera’s were recovered at the time of the crash at a farm in Buckfastleigh Devon. In the early 1980’s we traced the Pilot then living on the other side of the Berlin wall, as the wall had come down he came over to the UK. We took him to the site of his plane, The story goes he parachuted down nearby and was arrested by a farmer and taken to his house, awaiting the arrival of the Police, the pilot remembered the house very well and even recognised the axe used as a weapon as he was frogmarched up the road.
It was a big event as we had an interpreter the Pilot could not understand a word of English. All the locals who remembered the incident attended, sadly not the farmer that made the arrest. The Pilot told us that the engine had cut out twice on the way back from Plymouth, he managed to restart, but the third time he was to low and had to bale out. As my niche is Aero engines I got talking to him via the interpreter on fuel injection and water methanol injection. The pilot too was very enthusiastic on engines as well, he wished he could have understood English. I could talk to you about this all-day, he said.
One of the group members had made a model of his aircraft which was presented to him as a token of our thanks.
Hope this is of interest to you.
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