Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hello,

During the afternoon on 26 September Hurricane force-landed at Derna, the pilot was captured.

Does anyone know the serial of the aircraft and identity of the pilot?

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Well, I know this is a tough nut to crack, so I'll put forward my own suggestions.

Judging by the location it was almost certainly PRU aircraft. RAF frontline squadrons simply did not operated so deep into Axis-held territory at this time.

I'm aware of the loss of F/Lt Brown (Hurricane I (PR) W9116) of 2 PRU in nearly identical circumstances. In this thread on Rafcommands forum the date of F/Lt Brown's loss is given as 2 October and the source for that put simply as 'ORB':

http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/sho...wn-RAF-PRU-PoW

But, as the circumstances of the incident reported on 2 October is almost identical to those, reported by Pz.Gr. Afrika on 26 September, and as the exact date was given differently in different British sources (see the link to the thread above), it might well could be F/Lt Brown, who force-landed at Benghazi on 26 September 1941 and was captured with his aircraft

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andrei

Reading MAW Vol 1 there is nothing listed on 26.9.1941 and there seems not to have been any reconnaissance duties that day.

The loss of F/Lt Brown is listed in that same book on 2.10.1941 due to an Axis report, while, when the authors summarize their own conclusions, they find it more likely it all happened on the third. Reason for that is, I suppose, there was no real activity on the British side on the 2nd while on the third there was in fact a recce mission protected by five Hurricanes with Tomahawks as top cover.
Strangely enough they then continue to place Brown's loss on the second.

Brown received his DFC on 27.9.1941, that is one day after he became a POW if your date is correct. Not sure what was stated in such awards, but if he was already a POW when the medal was given, I feel it should have been noted somewhere.:confused:

Cheers
Stig

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Stig, thanks for your thoughts

Yes, MAW made reference to Axis report, which puzzled me. But while the force-landing of a Hurricane and capture of its pilot mentioned on 26 September, nothing was mentioned by Pz.Gr. Afrika neither on 2 nor on 3 October. Anyway, to lose two PR Hurricanes by force-landing on an Axis landing ground in the same area in the space of a week sounds a bit suspicious to me.

Hurricane fighters and Tac/R Hurricanes were not flying so far into the Axis territory. From memory, most advanced RAF landing grounds were in the Sidi Barrani area [400km from Derna] at the time.

The date of the award could be another clew, although not direct. The date of the award of DFC mentioned could be the date when award became effective, not when it was published. And F/Lt Brown could well have been awarded in recognition for his service prior to capture. This is just a suggestion (or call it speculation), but I found it plausible. The DFC Citation could clear this up.

I'm still not 100% sure it was F/Lt Brown's aircraft, that's why I started this thread. But currently I simply do not have other candidates

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hello,

The award of the DFC to 37717 F/L Anthony Malcolm BROWN MiD RAF, was published with just a general citation; The above awards are for gallantry and devotion to duty in the execution of air operations.

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/...upplement/5596

Note the date of the award.

Here are the details of Brown's Mention in Despatches, a few days earlier:

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/...upplement/5571

Col.

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Italian report : http://www.alieuomini.it/pagine/dett...l_n_al,60.html
488 - 3 ottobre
"nella giornata di ieri" meaning yesterday, the first sentence refers to the 2 OCT, for the others I don't know.

Italian report : http://www.alieuomini.it/pagine/dett...n_al_n,59.html
481 - 27 settembre
La difesa contraerea di Bengasi ha abbattuto due bombardieri nemici; un altro aereo è stato abbattuto dalla nostra caccia; un quarto apparecchio è stato costretto ad atterrare nelle nostre linee: l'equipaggio è stato fatto prigioniero.
loosely translated :
The Benghazi AAA shot down two enemy bombers; another aircraft was shot down by our fighters; a fourth plane force-landed inside our lines: the crew became POW.

Maybe not a Hurricane on the 27 or 26 SEP.

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Col. and udf_00, many thanks to both of you

As far as I understand the date mentioned in the supplement to the London Gazette is the date when the award became effective.

Those official Italian press releases are of much help. It seems no.488 is that 'Axis report' which was the source for authors of MAW.

There were no British bombers lost in the Benghazi area 25.09-27.09.1941 according to 'RAF Bomber Losses in the Middle East and Mediterranean'. So mention of a force-landing of the British aircraft and capture of its crew in no.481 almost certainly points to Hurricane from German report.

Tagesmeldung 26.9.41
1.)...
5.) 26.9. nachmittags 1 Hurricane in Derna notgelandet. Pilot gefangen.
6.)...

So now I'm 100% sure F/Lt A.M.Brown force-landed and was captured on 26. September

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Brilliant link!

All the best

Andreas

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andreas, thank you very much!

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Dear Andrej,
just a last note.
The war Diary of 153° Gruppo C.T. based in Derna, notes for 26 September 1941 that :"from 12.50 to 13.05 a Macchi C200 fighter of 374 Squadriglia scrambled. it saw an Hawker Hurricane force landing on Derna because of a breakdown".
ciao

Ludovico

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Sorry I mean Andrei.
Ludovico

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Ludovico,

Thanks a lot for this very interesting information! Much appreciated

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hello

I have most of the ORB & Summary of Events for 2 PRU.

In addition to the information you have already, the Summary of Events indicate that F/Lt Brown collected a new Hurricane W9352 on the 29th Sept 1941 etc etc....

From this record, his loss was on the 2nd Oct 1941 & cannot be the 26th Sept 1941 ...

Hope this helps

Gerry

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hello Gerry

So in this ORB which you have must be the answer who force-landed on 26 September, because no other Hurricane-equipped units flew operations so far away from the frontline at this time. Would you be so kind to tell what ORB says about any Hurricane operations or losses on 26 September 1941?

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hello Andrei

It seems that 2 PRU were set up from the 1st June 1941.

They were slowly building up the Unit & continuously pressing to get more aircraft.

As a result, on the 1st Sept 1941 they only had one operational Hurricane which was W9116, the Lockheed & the Beaufighter. They rec'd two "new" Hurricanes W9353 & Z4182 on the 1st Sept but these were then sent to 103 M.U to have cameras etc etc fitted and to be painted Blue.

The records state that they only undertook 5 Ops in Sept 1941 and all these were undertaken by W9116.

No Aircraft losses were reported for Sept 1941. The other Hurricanes mentioned above are mentioned undertaking Ops in Oct 1941 onwards....

Other useful information - 2 PRU started to operate from Fuka from the 1st Oct 1941.

F/Lt A.M.Brown brought Hurricane W9353 from Heliopolis to Fuka on the 1st Oct 1941. F/Lt Nicholson brought W9116.

On the 2nd Oct 1941, F/Lt Brown took off in W9116 at 08.50 hrs to undertake a recce of Benghazi, but did not return.

Hope this helps.

Gerry

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hello Andrei

Just correcting a typing error in my post on the 14th April.

On the 29th Sept 1941 F/Lt Brown collected Hurricane W9353 from 103 M.U.

Best wishes

Gerry

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Gerry

According to Air Britain No.2 PRU was formed 17.10.1940 at Heliopolis with Marylands. They had detachments both in Palestine and later Lebanon not to mention various places in the desert.

To me it rather looks like you are talking about the set up of one of these detachments (1.6.1941) in the desert, rather than the whole unit as such.

Thanks for quoting from the ORB for us.
Whatever force landed at Derna (if anything) on the 26th can't have been one of their Hurricanes.

Cheers
Stig

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Gerry,

Many thanks for your very detailed and informative reply!

To sum it up:

There are several German and Italian reports of a force-landing of Hurricane on 26 September 1941

The aircraft of this type (Hurricane) could only be of 2 PRU. (And, thanks to information from ORB, provided by Gerry, we now know this could only be W9116)

The date F/Lt Brown was awarded the DFC is 26 September 1941

Against this we have ORB of 2 PRU which gives the date as 2 October (This date also mentioned in one Italian press release)

It is also interesting that new Hurricane was collected from 103 MU on 29 September (to replace the earlier loss of another one?)

Could it be that ORB of 2 PRU is not contemporary and reconstructed some time after the events? So the date when unit learned of F/Lt Brown's capture was recorded as the date of his loss? I know I'm on too thin ice now. But there are no other options for a loss on 26 September.

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hi Stig

It was on a visit to the NA in 2010 whilst researching other units that I needed to look up some info on 2 PRU.

I discovered that I was given the "actual" ORB and not the usual micro-film, which was normal from this time onwards......

So I decided to focus on this unexpected opportunity & photographed the ORB myself.

Hopefully, I have managed to attach the first file to my post.

From this, you can read the introduction for 2 PRU.

I note that it eventually states that it was formed on the 17th March 1941.

Best wishes

Gerry

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Thanks Gerry

The Air Britain book mentions the Intelligence Photographic Flight and the date 3.3.1941 when their three Hurricanes were absorbed by the 2 PRU.

I can't explain their specific dates (either 17.10.1941 and 3.3.1941) but it seems unlikely to have been taken out of the blue, especially since the details were changed from the first edition where it was stated that the 2 PRU was formed on 3.3.1941 by re-naming the Intelligence Photographic Flight!

Some other document must then be the basis for these specific dates and also for giving details about the Marylands.

Your document mentions both October 1940 and March 1941 so we are on the right track...I guess....:)

Cheers
Stig

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andrei

The 2 PRU ORB is pretty much contemporary as you can see from Gerry's attachment.

I don't know what the Italians and Germans saw on the 26.9.1941 landing at Derna, but it is remarkable the German Panzer forces identified the aircraft as a Hurricane, which was better than most Luftwaffe pilots managed in the air.

What bothers me, if an Allied aircraft really landed at the date stated, is that no one really bothered to take note of a pilot gone missing and not returned.
That aircraft details went missing is not strange, but to have a pilot (or crew for that matter) going missing is something totally different. So if we don't bother about the actual aircraft, who was the individual that became POW? Seems odd that nothing seems to be known about anyone at that date.

Interestingly the Hurricane W9116 is listed by Air Britain as lost on 3.10.1941, that is the date Shores et All wants it in the first place. In fact Shores backdates this loss to the 2nd simply to fit Italian records. So if a 2 PRU Hurricane is the only option we have, W9116 at least seems to be ruled out as lost on the 26th.

Cheers
Stig

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Stig,

It is not only Pz Gruppe identified the aircraft as Hurricane, but Regia Aeronautica pilots of 153° Gruppo CT, who were themselves based at Derna (See post #10 by Ludovico Slongo)

The ORB was complied in wartime, of course, but it is not contemporary. The example kindly provided by Gerry illustrates this very well. Under the date of 1 June we could see a brief history of the unit and its origins up to that point. It is stated that the unit was actually formed with effect from 17 March 1941, two and a half month before the first dated entry in ORB.

It seems that the person who complied the document did not have all the documents concerning the early history of the unit on hand. So first months of its existance he recorded in outline and then attempted to reconstruct chronology day by day.

You are quite right that there is no information of a pilot, who became POW on 26 September, if we presume he was not F/Lt Brown.

So I'm still convinced that the aircraft, which made force-landing at Derna on 26 September was W9116 flown by F/Lt Brown

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andrei

This can be argued forever and of course you are entitled to your opinion.

With regard to the ORB, in my mind, of course it is contemporary. Even if it seems to start with a date 1.6.1941 and back track its formative period, that date and further on certainly must cover the dates we are interested in.

Gerry has already quoted that F/Lt Brown collected a Hurricane on 29 Sept which in my book excludes him from being a POW 26 Sept.
Depending on ORB the compilers/writers were 'often' a bit unreliable when quoting aircraft details, but I very much doubt they would be sloppy when it came to staff details. Spellings perhaps but not the individuals themselves.

Perhaps when I say 'often' above I am a bit careless since I have no personal checking of this. Maybe I am just 'notified' whenever there are problems so in fact the other 99% when everything is OK nobody bothers to take notes of it....

Reading MAW Vol 1 the Axis records obviously tell us about a force landing at El Hania on the 2nd. I don't know which records that are but what aircraft was that and perhaps more important who flew it? Because if that was NOT Brown we then have a problem identifying this pilot instead. We still have two losses according to Axis reports but only one known pilot made POW.

I don't know who Giovanni Massimello (Shores co-writer) is and what background (read research) he has got. Either he has missed or dismissed the Axis report regarding 26/9 but from a general point I think he has done a good job so far and he has managed to balance up the Italian AF in NA very well.

Cheers
Stig

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

The suggestion that only 2PRU could be the owner of the Hurricane doesn't seem watertight. I can think of two other possibilities, feel free to shoot them down. The first is a fighter pilot who had become disoriented and flew the wrong way, perhaps by making the classic mistake setting his compass. I understand that this was not common in the Western Desert because the position of the coast nearby was a bit of a strong hint, but this need not make it impossible. The second possibility is an intruder of 73 Sq, fitted with underwing tanks. Does the date of the event or the time of the landing rule this out?

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Stig

That Axis record was almost certainly Italian War Bulletin for general public. It was already brought to our attention by udf_00. Not very reliable source comparing with operational documents of Wehrmacht and Regia Aeronautica.

In my opinion, there was no landing on Axis landing ground on 2 or 3 October. The only known to me loss that matches the dates 2-3 October could be Sgt Lowry of 33 Sqn, shot down on 3 October east of Buq Buq (behind British lines and therefore it was highly unlikely that he was captured)

Graham

There are no known RAF fighter losses on 2 October. For 3 October one pilot of 112 Sqn was killed and Sgt Lowry of 33 Sqn were the only operational losses. 73 Sqn was in the Delta area at this time.

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Around this time No.33 Squadron was also flying with LR Hurricanes.

All the best

Andreas

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andreas

Judging by serials 33 Sqn flew standard MkI's at this time. All their operations were in the border area.

Graham

I forgot to mention there were no operational losses of RAF fighter squadrons on 26 September

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andrei

By mid-November they were flying LR Hurricane Mk. Is.

I haven't got he ORB for end September.

All the best

Andreas

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andreas

Correct me if I'm wrong, but 33 Sqn was issued with Hurricanes modified for LR operations prior deployment to Giarabub.

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

That's quite likely. As I said, I don't have the ORB for that period, and I don't know when the transfer took place.

All the best

Andreas

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Andreas

I don't have ORB too

From MAW1 and 451 Sqn ORB (available online):
In September and the first half of October 33 Sqn flew protection patrols for shipping to and from Tobruk, bomber escort and escort for Tac/R Hurricanes of 451 Sqn. All operations over Axis-held territory were roughly in Sidi Omar - Gambut - Bardia - Sollum area. Then nothing is mentioned in MAW about operations by 33 Sqn until November when it transferred to Giarabub. I presume the squadron was withdrawn from operations and received modified Hurricanes in the second half of October

Anyway, there are no corresponding losses of RAF fighter units on 26 September

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

The war diary of 5a Squadra notes nothing for 26 September.

For 2 October it notes the force landing of a Hurricane with engine failure on the advanced landing ground (campo di fortuna) El Hania. Pilot captured, plane damaged.

All the best

Andreas

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

A couple of mentions in German signals from July 1942 of captured Hurricane BP 176 here.

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

for the 26/09/1941 it was most probably F/Sgt Hawksley-Hill P.A. (POW)Hurricane Z4356, RAF Ta Kali loss in tranfert flight to Mersa Matruh

Regards
Phil

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Okay, I love it when thread necromancy delivers results. It looks as if Z4356 wasn't assigned to a unit, so that explains why she didn't show up in unit loss records. She was originally delivered in Operation RAILWAY from Ark Royal but then had to be repaired on Malta.



The plane has a bit of a history, and there are pictures of her, nosed over and under Axis guard.


http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/sho...urricane-Z4356


http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/archiv...p?t-19337.html


http://www.ww2incolor.com/italian-fo...pezionato.html



All the best


Andreas

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Quite a welcome surprise Phil!

Since I am a curious individual, and this has been a mystery for the past 10 years or so, may I ask from where you located the information?
We can all see from the photo this aircraft was lost and from what I can see to the Italians as well. Are you thus putting 2 and 2 together or is there a document stating that Hawksley-Hill flew this aircraft and was lost the date in question?

Cheers
Stig

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Italian records says that the pilot captured in the aircraft which had force-landed on the 2nd October was an officer, while the pilot captured in force-landing on 26 September was an NCO. So PRU machine was indeed lost on 2nd October

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Hello Andrei,

Perhaps this may help re Z4356 .

http://www.rafcommands.com/database/...php?uniq=Z4356

Alex

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Alex

Many thanks! Everything fits together now

Re: Hurricane captured at Derna 26.09.1941
 

Yes exactly , I have it in my data base but found détails on
http://discovery.nationalarchives.go...2081&id=C16484

Regards
Phil