1940 Hurricane loss photograph - France

[Larry Hickey]

Andy,

You asked for me to comment. I've got a large DB on a/c force-landed on French Beaches during 1940, but this one is new to me. Peter Cornwell is upgrading our entire EoE DB for May, 1940, as I write this, and I'm sure will give this his best shot. I don't have anything to add to the identification on this one.

Regards,

[Hurri600]

Have just found a letter which Pat Leeson sent me back in 1997, he was the Pilot of L2121.
He States
' I was flying as No 2 to Gerry Edge & shortly after reaching the coast of France, we ran into thick cloud & parted company fearing a collision. I then went down to ground level & ran straight into ground flak. The radiator was hit & 109's appeared so decided to land on my belly & was wounded when first flattening out'

So i believe to photo is not L2121 but more likely L2119 flown by N.Forbes.

Hope this is of Interest & help.
Iain

[Andy Saunders]

Iain

Thats interesting! Many thanks.

However, why does this rule out L2121 do you think? Is it because he made no mention of landing on a beach?

Presumably both made a forced landing, and both POW.

Just a little unclear as to why you favour Forbes over Leeson. But it might just be me!!

[Hurri600]

Hi Andy

My reasoning is only that he stated he bellylanded as opposed to a force landing.
However you are quite correct not a definite conclusion it could be just a choice of wording.
He came down near St Pol but i have no idea where this is in relation to the coast.
Also records mention as does the letter that Leeson was wounded, there appears to be no mention of Forbes being hurt and as there seems to be little visible damage to the aircraft.
However there could possibly be damage on the other side, not concrete evidence just my thoughts.
Iain

[Buffnut453]

St.Pol Sur Mer is adjacent to Dunkirk (indeed, today, the two pretty much merge into into one urban sprawl). This, perhaps, suggests that Pat Leeson's aircraft is a contender for this photo?

[Andy Saunders]

Indeed, although I think there are one or two other places called St Pol that could also be possible although the coastal location sounds good to me.

I am not sure I understand your rationale,Iain. Isn't a 'belly landing' exactly what we are looking at in this photograph?

I do agree, though, that there is little visible damage to point to pilot being wounded - but that could have resulted from no more than one, or two, holes that might well be invisible in a photo like this.

I think the jury is still out!

[Buffnut453]

Other Saint Pols include:

Saint Pol-sur-Ternoise - roughly 60 miles south of Dunkirk and 20 miles west of Arras
Saint Pol-de-Leon - roughly 30 miles northeast of Brest

These may not be the only Saint Pols in France but they were the only ones GoogleMaps came up with. I think we can discount Saint Pol-de-Leon because it's well south of fighting that took place in May 1940 (Plymouth is the closest part of England to Saint Pol-de-Leon).

So we have a photo of a 605 Sqn Hurricane that force-landed on a beach, and an account of a 605 Sqn pilot who force-landed near "St.Pol" for which there are 2 options, one near Dunkirk and the second inland and further south. I still don't think we have a definitive answer...unless we can account for all other 605 Sqn losses during the period.

[Buffnut453]

According to "Twelve Days in May", on 22 May 40 605 Sqn lost 2 Hurricanes in engagements with Me109s followed by a further 2 Hurricanes hit by return fire from 3 He111s in the vicinity of Arras, one pilot being killed and the other force-landed.

"Air Battle Dunkirk" provides details of the following 605 Sqn losses:

26 May - P/O Muirhead baled out (so HE-T is clearly not his aircraft).
27 May - F/O Forbes seen to go down near Poperinghe which is southeast of Dunkirk and thus cannot be the "Hurri on a beach" in the original pic. Later that same day, S/L Perry and P/O Danielson were lost (although locations were not identified).

On 28 May, 605 Sqn was withdrawn to Drem to regroup (they'd lost 6 pilots killed, one taken prisoner and one (Muirhead) missing since joining the fray a week earlier).


Dunno whether any of this helps very much...

KR
Mark

[Alex Smart]

Hello,
Since my post (No: 11) I have followed this story with great interest.
From what Mark has in his post (No:32) above.
He notes that -
605 Sqdn lost :
6 pilots killed.
1 POW.
1 MIA.
This from the 28th May '40 from the week earlier when it joined the fray.
However, as can be seen in my post(No: 11) I found only
4 Killed
and
2 POW
I also found perhaps an error with the CWGC date given for the death of Danielsen, which is given as the 17th May, this is at odds with the 27th and P3581. Perhaps someone can get this comfirmed and/or corrected ??
There were indeed 5 killed at least, I missed one.
P/O. A. S. Dini,(ex 607 Sqdn) 31st May 1940 I beleive him to have been in L2117 which force landed north of Folkstone, UK.
And I believe that the MIA refered to would have been Muirhead who baled, tried to return by ship, got sunk and rescued safe.
Also to round off.
23th May, Leeson -POW - L2121
27th May, Forbes - POW - L2119
but also
25th May, F/O. G.R. Edge - Safe - N2557 - Cat B Damage.

Other earlier losses were:
AC2. H.J. Taylor on the 1st April 40
and
F/O. R. M. Mainland killed on the 25th April 40 ( was he in L2013 or N2358 ?).
Next loss was 24th June 40 - L2115.

All for now
Alex

[AndyMa]

Another (the same?) photograph of Hurricane HE-T has appeared on ebay:
https://www.ebay.at/itm/186292669612
Looking through this old thread, the general consensus was that it was likely to be either L2119 or L2121.
Interestingly, a look at ASN shows that codes have been allocated to these aircraft somewhere along the line:
L2119 UP-Z: https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/228325
L2121 UP-T: https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/228038
The reference to UP- codes is perhaps understandable, but I wonder where the individual codes came from? No codes are listed in the ORB.
Another problem is that neither of the "likely crash locations" is anywhere near the coast...

Can anyone add any more after all this time?