Downed Spit

[engleworth]

For a number of years on and off I have been trying to find out the details of the young pilot of a Spitfire, which crashed on my grandmother’s house during WWII. 1942-43, but have been unable to do so. I wondered if anyone on this site could help with the following meagre guide. My mother and I arrived on the scene a day or so later. One thing I have not forgotten is the sights of the tail plane on its own devoid of anything just the airframe, lying on the front lawn.
I have few details.
The pilot was 19. He may have been trying to make for the mass of green shrubbery that was behind the hedge adjacent to the house. However he never got that far, turned to port and crashed into the garage and died.
Wentworth Close is at the top of Ditton Hill, Surbiton; from the bottom a left turn. It is still there but whereas the close, which has a dogleg right, ended opposite my grandmother’s house at a thick hawthorn hedge, the road has now been carried through what were the grounds of a broken down Victorian house.
My grandmother’s house was then called ‘Sarre’ I’m afraid the number escapes me.
I never knew this lad but who ever he was I have always thought about him and regarded him as being extremely brave like all the others of his genre.
With thanks
Engleworth.