Hurricane friendly fire 10/3/41

[BrianC]

Hi guys

The following is an extract from the draft of my proposed Volume 2 of BLUE on BLUE:

(Contemporary report) On 11/3/41, Polish pilot, Sqn Ldr Tadeusz Halewski flying a Hurricane of the Servicing Ferry Pool, reported being ‘attacked’ by a suspected friendly fighter while ferrying an unarmed Canadian-built Hurricane (serial number 311/L1760). He escaped by taking violent evasive action and eventually forced-landed on rough ground near Budleigh Salterton in Devon with an overheated engine. The identity of his ‘assailant’ has not been established but may have been a Hurricane pilot on an air test from the newly established 118 Squadron based at Exeter. At the subsequent Court of Inquiry the Polish pilot’s CO considered that faulty airmanship was a contributory cause of the accident, since ‘he should have turned onto a reciprocal course until he reached reasonable conditions which he knew existed behind’, but the Court concurred that he was not to blame.

I wonder if anyone is able to add to the above, please? 118 Squadron mentioned in the report was a newly-formed Spitfire unit, while RAF Exeter's resident Hurricane unit was 87 Squadron. Neither ORBs make any mention of such an incident. So, who was the errant pilot?

Take care
Brian

Whoops! I wrote 10/3/41 in the heading by error! Should have been 11/3/41!

[Chris Goss]

Nothing in the unofficial 87 and 118 Sqn records and in any case 118 had no Hurricanes and was at Filton or Pembrey