Acknowledgements
The photographs contained in this volume are largely from my private archive of images I have collected of Luftwaffe aircraft downed in Britain during the period 1939 to 1945. A great many friends and colleagues have assisted me in this quest, have helped me identify the scenes captured on film, or otherwise provided additional information. In no particular order of merit, I would like to thank: Peter Cornwell, Steve Hall, Chris Goss, Dennis Knight, Winston Ramsey, Richard Hukins, Dave Buchanan, Phillipa Hodgkiss, Alfred Price, Gerry Burke and Martin Mace.
In addition, I must mention two other fellow researchers who are no longer with us but whose work added considerably to our sum of knowledge relating to the recovery of aircraft wrecks in wartime Britain. They are my late friend Pat Burgess and a colleague of many years, Peter Foote. Pat had been a prodigious collector of information relating to the county of Sussex, the area in which much of the activity described in this book had taken place. Peter Foote had been equally industrious in recording the minutiae of events during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz across Britain since the late 1940s and his tireless research work has left a legacy of unequalled information. Had he not recorded some of these events before it was too late to find the evidence then our knowledge of that period would be much the poorer.
Lastly, I must pay tribute to the late Arthur Nicholls. His gift to me of his surviving records, reports and photographs provided a veritable treasure trove of information.
In addition, I must extend my thanks to the many other individuals and organisations that have assisted me in over forty years of related research who I have not named here. My thanks to you all.
Andy Saunders
September 2013.
Clearing away the debris and detritus of modern mechanised warfare is something that warring nations have had to deal with since the end of the First World War, and the inevitable result of twentieth century warfare was the large-scale littering of land and sea with the wreckages that combat left behind. The massive and widespread land battles across Europe during the first and second world wars left their own particular trails of destruction and debris that had to be cleared away before normal life could once again resume in the post war periods, and those clear-up operations presented their own challenges, dangers and difficulties. In the British Isles during the Second World War, and for the first time in modern history, the country was faced with widespread destruction caused by bombing, and disruption and damage to infrastructure caused by almost six years of conflict – some of that damage resulting from defensive measures taken by the military with the establishment of aerodromes, fortifications and other defences.
Putting things back to how they were took very many years, although during the 1939–1944 period itself a far more immediate problem faced the authorities in Britain: the collection and disposal of shot down or crashed aircraft, allied and enemy. Such crashes needed almost immediate attention for a variety of reasons. How were they dealt with, and what subsequently happened to them?
Often the remains were badly smashed up or even largely buried in the ground, but they could yield useful clues about new enemy developments such as advances in weaponry or armour, improved engine installations, the quality of oils and fuels used, information about factories where component parts had been built, as well as the significance of German tactical markings, camouflage paint schemes and even unit emblems. Additionally, much could be discovered about the effect of British munitions against enemy aircraft. In some cases these German aircraft were substantially intact and a few prime examples were selected for public display for fund raising and morale-boosting initiatives and many of these are illustrated in this book. Others that were deemed of greater use or value were subject to careful dismantling and transportation to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough. Here, a more thorough technical examination was possible and some examples were then further earmarked for full repair and refurbishment and an eventual return to the air for flight testing. Much could be learned about the flying characteristics of these captured Luftwaffe machines, including the strengths and weaknesses of various types as they were assessed against British fighters and thereby give RAF pilots and other defending forces a better insight into the enemy aircraft they were pitted against. To keep these captured examples airworthy, a plentiful supply of spare parts could often be gleaned from other crashed aircraft of the same type that were falling onto British soil on a somewhat regular basis.
British aircraft needed to be dealt with too. Very often, as with the German types, the wreckages were smashed up, burnt or perhaps buried. The remnants still had to be cleared away, although there was a somewhat different agenda in that process. Clearly, the crashes held no intelligence value and it was simply a case of taking away the wrecks from wherever they had fallen. Often, RAF aircraft had been force-landed and were assessed to be repairable for eventual return to flight and it was thus essential that they were dismantled as carefully as possible without causing any further damage. More seriously damaged machines might yet yield salvageable parts and equipment that could be returned to stores for use and this was part of the remit of the RAF Maintenance Units charged with retrieving such wrecks. However, many of the more smashed-up wreckages would eventually follow the same route as the demolished Luftwaffe airframes; processing for scrap and smelting into ingots.
Given the scale of wartime aircraft losses over the United Kingdom, a network of RAF Maintenance Units across the country were allocated regional responsibility for the collection and disposal of aircraft wreckages. Sometimes, and especially during the hectic summer of 1940, the RAF were unable to keep pace with the volume of work as more and more aircraft were being brought down, and the Air Ministry consequently engaged civilian contractors to collect and transport British and German aircraft wrecks. Detailed arrangements were also put in place for the guarding, inspection, collection and disposal of wrecks, and specific protocols were firmly established for dealing with the growing number of crashed aircraft.
This book looks at what is a particularly fascinating aspect of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz through a remarkable collection of unique photographs. It is a story that has never before been fully told.
To present day aviation historians and researchers, the work of the wartime aircraft salvage gangs is often a matter of great interest, despite the fact that little has been written on the subject. The work of the RAF’s Maintenance Units in clearing wrecks in south-east England during 1940, supported by civilian haulage firms who were contracted by the Air Ministry to assist the RAF gangs in wreck recovery and clearance, represents an important aspect of the history of the Battle of Britain.
When an RAF aircraft did not return from a training or operational flight its parent unit had a duty to notify the Air Ministry, who in turn informed the Headquarters of No. 43 Maintenance Group, located at Cowley near Oxford. If it was known that the aircraft in question had crashed or made an emergency landing in the UK, the staff of No. 43 Maintenance Group would pass on this information to the RAF Maintenance Unit (MU) that covered the area in which the aircraft had been lost. The airframe or wreckage would then be inspected by the MU’s crash inspector, and following this suitable arrangements would be made for its collection and disposal.
For enemy aircraft the procedure was different. The first step in the process was an inspection by an RAF Technical Intelligence Officer from the A.I. 1(g) department – the A.I. standing for Air Intelligence. This individual’s task was to garner as much information relating to the aircraft in question as was possible. Identification markings, type of engine(s), armament, armour plate, crew number and details, leading edges (and specifically whether protected against balloon cables by cutters, strengthened, or fitted with other devices, including de-icing equipment), and, lastly, recommended disposal – these were just some of the questions on his form, known as ‘Form C’. Once this had been completed, and all relevant details of equipment and identification had been noted from the aircraft or wreckage, then it could be released for recovery by the relevant MU.
The brunt of responsibility for the clearance of wrecks, both British and German, in the main Battle of Britain areas of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire during 1940 fell to No. 49 Maintenance Unit. Located at RAF Faygate near Horsham in Sussex, and with its parent unit being RAF Tangmere, an advance party had arrived to establish the base there on 28 September 1939. The establishment at Faygate was initially named No. 1 Salvage Centre, but the title was formally changed to 49 Maintenance Unit on 21 October 1939.
Situated beside the main London to Horsham railway line the site grew into a collection of wooden huts, dominated by a canvas Bessonneau type hanger and a sprawling and ever expanding dump of wrecked aircraft. Few domestic facilities were provided at the site and therefore all of the personnel were billeted with families in the nearby town of Horsham.
One of those who subsequently recalled his time with 49 MU was Leading Aircraftman Monty Cook. His overriding memory of his time as a ‘49er’ was the discovery of bodies or body parts at a crash site. At one location, for example, he pulled a boot from the wreckage of one aircraft only to discover that the foot was still inside it. ‘I went and found a spot by a tree where the sun was shining and buried it there,’ he remembered.
Apart from the few personnel who remained permanently on site at Faygate, under the command of the unit’s Commanding Officer, Squadron Leader Goodman, most of the airmen were divided into Crash Parties of eight to ten men, with each group being under the command of a senior NCO. At its peak, 49 MU could muster fifteen of these teams. In addition, the unit had a number of Crash Inspectors, mostly of Pilot Officer rank, who visited each aircraft to be recovered and assessed any particular problems and decided on equipment and manpower required for the recovery task.
Not to be confused with the MU’s Crash Inspectors were the Intelligence Officers of Air Intelligence mentioned previously. One A.I. 1(g) Officer was attached to each MU in order that each part of the country could easily be covered, rather than rely on officers working from the A.I. unit’s H.Q. that had been established in a converted school in Harrow Weald.
With the unprecedented level of aerial activity over the United Kingdom in the summer months of 1940 it soon became obvious that the existing chain of MU bases around the country could not cope with the large and increasing numbers of wrecked aircraft littering the countryside.
Perhaps feeling the strain the most was the hard-pressed 49 MU. The situation was not improved when the unit lost a number of vehicles, including a Ford V8 staff car and a Commer low-loader, during the Luftwaffe attack on Hawkinge on 12 August 1940. This was followed by the death of two drivers and the loss of three Commer low-loaders, a Coles crane and a Bedford three-tonner during the devastating Stuka raid on RAF Tangmere on 16 August 1940. Something needed to be done and prior to the formation of 86 MU at Sundridge, Kent, in early 1941, to help ease the burden on 49 MU, the Air Ministry also engaged a number of firms of civilian contractors from the road haulage industry.
Among the civilian companies employed to assist the RAF were Coast Transport Ltd, Portsmouth Carriers and Messrs A.V. Nicholls & Co. The latter company operated from its business premises at 100 North Road, Brighton, but, in terms of aircraft salvage, came under the direct control of 49 MU at Faygate.
Unlike the RAF recovery parties, those of Messrs A.V. Nicholls and other civilian firms consisted of untrained men working with little equipment and often under conditions of extreme difficulty. Usually only two men were despatched on a recovery job and might be expected to dismantle, cut up or dig out a wreck depending on the circumstances of the crash.
Basic equipment for the A.V. Nicholls recovery party would be a pair of sheer legs, oxy-acetylene cutting equipment, buckets, spades and a lorry with a flat-bed trailer. Mr Jack Austen and Mr Bob Sawyers performed most of the eighty-odd recovery jobs undertaken by the A.V. Nicholls between September 1940 and March 1941, from which date the civilian contractors ceased to operate due to pressure having been eased by the formation of 86 MU at Sundridge, Kent, and by a comparative lull in aerial activity.
Fortunately, the records relating to the activities of A.V. Nicholls & Co. during 1940 have survived and were passed into the safe keeping of the author by the late Mr Nicholls in 1976. They provide a fascinating insight into this aspect of Battle of Britain history and have enabled historians and researchers to solve a number of mysteries relating to downed aircraft from the 1940 period.
Notably, one report in the Nicholls file, relating to the loss of a Spitfire I, X4278, enabled the Ministry of Defence and Commonwealth War Graves Commission to place a named headstone on the grave of Pilot Officer John Cutts of 222 Squadron who had been killed when he was shot down by a Messerschmitt Bf 109 over Maidstone at 13.30 hours on 4 September 1940. For some reason the casualty recovered from Spitfire X4278 had not been identified and was buried in 1940 as an ‘unknown airman’ at Bell Road Cemetery, Sittingbourne, but a report in the archives of A.V. Nicholls & Co. identified the serial number of the Spitfire in which Cutts had been lost and, thereby, provided a definite link to the grave of the previously unidentified pilot who had been recovered from that wreck in 1940.
One problem frequently encountered was the wholesale removal of souvenirs from crashed aircraft by military and civilian gangs alike. Such was the level of the problem that the Minister for Aircraft Production issued a statement on 6 October 1940 urging the public not to remove material or equipment from crashed aircraft. This was later followed by the issue of Standing Orders covering the Guarding and Salvage of Crashed Aircraft, in which the subject of souvenirs was also dealt with.
None of this, however, did anything to prevent 49 MU’s CO, Squadron Leader Goodman, from having to issue a letter to the tenant of Cooling Court, Cooling, Kent on 7 October 1940, requesting that the bearer of the letter, Jack Austen, be handed parts of a German bomber in the farmer’s possession. The aircraft in question was a 9/KG 77 Junkers Ju 88, Werke Nummer 5104 and coded 3Z+DT, which had been shot down at Cooling Court on 18 September 1940. It would seem that very little heed was paid to this formal demand. When the author visited Cooling Court in 1979 and interviewed its owner, a Mr Whitbread, and showed him a copy of the letter of 7 October 1940, a smiling Mr Whitbread promptly disappeared into his attic. He emerged a short while later with armfuls of relics from the Ju 88 in question – including fuel pumps and filters and a complete elevator trim tab!
Apart from the problems of recovering items like these from souvenir hunters the salvage gangs sometimes had other headaches or dangers to contend with. For example, whilst cutting up the wreckage of Heinkel He 111, Werke Nummer 3322, 1HzGP, of 6/KG 26, which had been shot down at Gordon Boys School, Chobham, Surrey on 24 September 1940, ganger Bob Sawyers caused a large grass fire with his cutting gear which, in turn, detonated scattered rounds of 7.92mm ammunition.
Another excavation which caused problems was the attempt to dig out, by hand, Pilot Officer W. Armstrong’s 74 Squadron Spitfire IIa, P7386, from where it had been shot down on 14 November 1940 – Armstrong had baled out over Dover at about 14.00 hours after combat with German fighters. Superficial surface wreckage was cleared by Austen and Sawyers on 25 November and excavations down to a depth of fourteen feet were made. At this level the fuselage and cockpit wreckage were recovered. At fourteen feet, however, the engine had not been located and the recovery work ceased. Not satisfied with the outcome, Squadron Leader Goodman ordered that digging operations should continue and work re-commenced on 25 November to a depth of some twenty feet where the engine was finally located. At this depth, water began to flow into the excavation and despite the use of a pump the engine could not be extricated from the wet soil and just sank deeper. Eventually, the team had to admit defeat and the recovery work was halted on 2 December when the hole was filled in on top of the unrecovered engine.
To some, the reports about the two men digging to twenty feet by hand and recovering all of the buried Spitfire’s wreckage apart from the engine might seem a little far-fetched. However, apart from there being photographic evidence of the salvage gang at work, the crash site was again excavated in October 2011 and the buried Rolls-Royce Merlin XII engine was recovered from around twenty feet – just exactly as the Nicholls gang had reported.
Another example of the dangers involved in wreck salvage is provided by the work undertaken in relation to the Dornier Do 17 of 8/KG 3, (werke number 2573 and coded 5KzCS), which had crashed into the gardens of houses in Wansunt Road in the London Borough of Bexley on 3 November 1940. Having been despatched to the site, the Nicholls gang had a lucky escape when a stick of bombs fell across the crash site during the night; thankfully no-one was present at the time. When they returned the following morning, Nicholls’ men were greeted with a scene of utter devastation. Amongst other damage, one of the Dornier’s Bramo-Fafnir engines had been thrown by the exploding bombs into the cab of the gang’s Leyland lorry.
On another occasion, two RAF maintenance unit airmen were electrocuted at Studland in Dorset when the jib of their Coles crane touched overhead power cables as they salvaged a Heinkel 111 which had crashed there on 25 September 1940. In yet another accident, an airman was crushed to death when an aero engine rolled from the lorry onto which it was being loaded. Wreck recovery was certainly not without its dangers.
It was a busy summer for Arthur Nicholls. On 19 September 1940, he was despatched by 49 MU to inspect a Spitfire that had crashed near Hartfield. His trip provides an excellent example of the difficulties the salvage gangs experienced in the hectic days of the Battle of Britain. The aircraft in question, Spitfire R6971, was being flown by 72 Squadron’s Pilot Officer Ernest Edward Males when it was shot down during combat with a force of Messerschmitt Bf 110s. Males had baled out uninjured, leaving his aircraft to plummet to earth, slamming into the ground at Culver’s Farm near Hartfield.
‘I inspected the site of crash at Culvers Farm,’ Nicholls subsequently noted, ‘and was informed by the lady owing the farm that the aircraft was removed on Wednesday, September 4th (the same day as it crashed) by a party of Royal Engineers. The farmer’s son had salved from the wreckage a name plate which I inspected and on which was this number: ‘‘Type; Spitfire, Serial No.; AP/69/46385’’.’
‘Whilst interrogating the farmer’s son I discovered that another Spitfire had crashed near Hartfield. Thinking this may be the one for which we were looking I proceeded with the gang to Swift’s Farm, Nr. Withyham, Hartfield. I found there an engine only, No: Merlin 30329, being guarded by the military authorities; I was informed that the fuselage and wings had been taken away by the RAF and they were returning to take away the engine. It would therefore appear that Spitfire R6971 has already been cleared.’
On 2 September 1940, Flying Officer D.B. Bell-Salter flying a 253 Squadron Hurricane Mk.I, serial V6640, was shot down over Rye. He baled out wounded, whilst his aircraft fell to the ground near the town. It was a number of weeks before Arthur Nicholls was requested to undertake a recovery of the fighter. However, sometimes the instructions given to Nicholls were somewhat vague and imprecise, as he was about to discover.
‘I ascertained the location of this machine from the Police at Rye,’ he wrote, ‘as having crashed on the foreshore near the Old Castle ruins immediately in front of the town. This aircraft is completely burnt out, both fuselage and engine. Inspecting the remains I discovered a piece of the fuselage bearing the following number – V6623.’
Nicholls had been directed to the wrong crash site. He had, in fact, come across the wreckage of an 85 Sqaudron Hurricane shot down near Winchelsea on 29 August 1940.
‘Amongst the wreckage,’ continued Nicholls, ‘were burnt pieces of the pilot’s uniform from which I salved a piece of the pocket with a linen tab bearing the following – ‘‘Gieves Ltd. L/5/38. 40/16207 H.R. Hamilton’’. I have instructed a gang to clear the wreckage tomorrow, Saturday the 28th inst.’
A Canadian from Oak Point, New Brunswick, 23-year-old Flight Lieutenant Harry Raymond Hamilton was killed in the crash. He was buried with full military honours in Hawkinge Cemetery.
On occasions, the sheer volume of work required the civilian contractors to work together. One example was the events of 27 October 1940, when Arthur Nicholls became involved in the recovery of the remains of a Bf 109 from near the North End Promenade at Littlestone in Kent. The aircraft in question had been shot down on Tuesday, 22 October by Flying Officer Coke of 257 Squadron during a combat over the Channel at about 16.30 hours. The Bf 109 broke up in mid-air, with the bulk of the airframe falling into the sea off Littlestone Golf Links. The pilot, Uffz Arp, was killed.
‘Messrs Coast Transport had carried out this clearance and reported that this aircraft had crashed in the sea and that the wreck was not visible any longer, even at low tide. Parts of the fuselage of this machine had been strewn along the Promenade and had been collected by a squad of the 7th Dorsets and taken to their headquarters on the Promenade. These sections were cleared and it is thought that the small amount of wreckage did not justify a visit to Faygate specially and I have instructed Coast Transport to put it on a lorry when next they are returning a crashed aircraft to Faygate.’
With the daily arrival at 49 MU of wrecked aircraft, British and German, a vast graveyard of jumbled aeroplanes soon formed there. Photographs taken of the yard in 1940 show a huge mountain of assorted wreckage, all of it consigned for eventual re-processing at another vast depot at Banbury, Oxfordshire, by the Northern Aluminium Company. It was to Banbury that most of the wreckage at Faygate was eventually finally taken, along with thousands of aluminium pots, pans, hot-water bottles, tennis racquets, car badges and sundry other items following an appeal to the British public for aluminium.
Not all of the wrecked aircraft were immediately processed for scrap. A number of the more intact German examples were earmarked for technical evaluation or for public display around the country in the various ‘Spitfire Fund’ drives or for ‘War Weapons Week’ exhibitions. The task of transporting these aircraft often fell to Nicholls & Co., with the firm’s men collecting the requisite Luftwaffe machine and transporting it to the public exhibition site where they would set it up for display and, later on, dismantle the aircraft and return it to Faygate or go on to another venue.
Post-war, the site of 49 MU at Faygate became a timber yard. More recently it has been developed for sheltered residential housing. The site of the Banbury processing depot later became the location of Messrs Bibby’s Agricultural Feeds and Seeds plant.
Given the number of aircraft downed across the country during 1940 and 1941 the scale of work carried out by the salvage gangs, both military and civilian, was enormous. That a record is still extant, both photographic and documentary, is largely due to the foresight of the late Arthur Nicholls when he preserved many of his original 1940 documents and photographs.