The soldier is in a Heer uniform so definitely not a forced landing on British soil. While flying Mk.Is, 74 record very few losses over French soil after Dunkirk and none of them fit the profile for this spit.
74 Sqn Mk.I losses over Dunkirk are as follows….
* F/O ‘Sammy’ Hoare’s P9321. Hoare force landed near Calais-Marck on 23.5.40. He returned to British lines, then caught a boat and rejoined his squadron. A very strong candidate but for the snag of the VHF aerial.
* Fl/Lt. ‘Paddy’ Treacy’s K9992, shot down over Dunkirk on 23.5.40. Treacy bailed out, so not this one. Treacy was later shot down in K9875 on 27.5.40.
* Sgt. Tony Mould’s K9952, Mould may have force landed. So another strong candidate.
* P/O Richard ‘Bertie’ Aubert’s N3243, shot down on same patrol as Mould and Treacy on the 23rd. What happened to him doesn’t appear to be well known. As he has no known grave, a forced landing doesn’t appear likely. Edit: As noted below Aubert was shot down twice in three days. His first FTR from the 21st is another possibility.
* Squadron Leader White’s unidentified Spit. This led to the ‘Calais-Marck Bounce’ where Al Deere and Johnny Allen of 54 Sqn earned DFCs. Frank White’s serial is not known for certain, the ORB fails to mention it, but he made a good landing at Calais-Marck and his Spit was positively ID’ed as ZP-J, so it’s not this one.
* P/O Peter Stevenson’s L1084. Stevenson managed to get evacuated and return to the Squadron in the UK within a week. Another possibility.
HTH
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