Spitfire parts unearthed

[Kyt]

Parts of Spitfire unearthed by historian - ChronicleLive

BURIED beneath thick bog in the heart of the countryside, Spitfire P8563 hadn’t seen daylight for more than 60 years.

The Second World War Royal Canadian Air Force fighter had plummeted to the ground near Blanchland in Northumberland in March 1942, killing its 25-year-old pilot.

But now, thanks to the efforts of war historian Philip Smith, parts of the wreckage have been brought to the surface, an eerie reminder of our fallen heroes.

The 36-year-old postman and aircraft enthusiast, has spent the last four years planning the plane’s excavation, and finally received permission.

Armed with spades and plastic buckets, the two-day excavating project saw Mr Smith, a member of the amateur research group Air Crash Investigation and Archeology, and a few colleagues uncover the wreckage.

Mr Smith, of Sunnidale, Fellside Park, Whickham, said: “It’s exciting but emotional as well because you are touching a piece of history.

“It’s a very lonely place at the crash site. It hits home when you’re standing on the site where the pilot died. I was really pleased with the outcome of the dig, we found some really interesting stuff, including instruments from the cockpit, like the radio. We also found the pilot’s seat and breathing apparatus.

“We were only allowed to dig 1.2 metres down and some of the plane is two metres into the ground. I have to write a report to the MoD now to tell them what I’ve found and they’ll decide if they want any of it.

“If they don’t, I’m hoping we can put it on display at the aircraft museum in Washington.

“I have investigated this Spitfire for about four years now. At the site you can tell a plane has crashed. It’s basically a bare patch on the ground when everywhere else has heather and other growth on it. The aviation fuel means nothing grows there. We found it using just a metal detector.

“We just used spades and plastic buckets, as we could only get permission for that. The crash area is an area of conservation because of the peat bogs and it’s also an area of Special Scientific Interest. We have to return the land there to how we found it.”

The pilot of the Spitfire was Pilot Officer Harold John Appel, service number J/6957, who was based at RAF Ouston in Northumberland. Thick cloud is thought to have caused the crash.

Motivated by his belief that the pilots of the Second World War should not be forgotten, Mr Smith plans to mount a plaque in Blanchland in remembrance of Harold Appel as he has done with the pilots at his previous excavations.

“I can’t overstate the importance of remembering these pilots,” he said. “I try to mount a plaque after every excavation I carry out. The last one was in High Marley Hill in Gateshead and we held a small memorial service.

“It’s quite a sensitive issue sometimes because relatives of the pilots are still living, so we have to try to trace them and check everything with them.”

[Kyt]

P8563 Spitfire IIa
5MU 26-5-41
RAF Northolt 4-7-41
315S 14-7-41
308S 14-7-41
ASTH Cv Va M45
39MU 7-11-41
81S 3-1-42 hit high ground nr Stanhope Durham 27-3-42
SOC 28-3-42

Name: APPEL, HAROLD JOHN
Initials: H J
Nationality: Canadian
Rank: Pilot Officer (Pilot)
Regiment/Service: Royal Canadian Air Force
Unit Text: 81 (R.A.F.) Sqdn
Age: 25
Date of Death: 27/03/1942
Service No: J/6957
Additional information: Son of Andrew and Alma Appel; husband of Joan K. Appel, of Terrington St. Clement, Norfolk.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Sec. R. Grave 35.
Cemetery: SUTTON BRIDGE (ST. MATTHEW) CHURCHYARD

[Kyt]

The Hexham Courant

IT should have been a routine flight for Canadian airman Harold John Appel.

The operational patrol over the coast around Seaham Harbour should have presented few difficulties to a pilot officer with over 140 hours solo flying under his belt.

But on March 26, 1942, there was low visibility and the weather was poor.

Pilot Officer Appel also had little experience flying using only the aircraft’s instruments – he’d come to England just months before in September 1941 for further training before transferring to his squadron.

So when he lost his section leader, out of contact with his base, he dropped below the cloud to find his bearings and flew his Spitfire into the hills south of Blanchland.

Sixty six years on, air crash investigation archaeologists have been excavating the wreckage of Supermarine Spitfire Mk. IIa in a bid to shed more light on the events of that day.

The amateur team, headed by Bellingham’s Jim Corbett, have spent many hours tracing surviving witnesses of the crash, trawling through RAF paperwork to pinpoint the exact crash site.

Relying on written evidence presented to the court of inquiry which investigated the crash at the time, the team factored in possible flight directions and all the hills and valleys in the perceived flight path.

Surviving eye witnesses were also persuaded to return to the area just south of Blanchland, on the outskirts of Stanhope, to help in the search, but at first nothing could be found.

In the end it was down to, as Jim put it, “a large amount of luck” and the wonders of modern science that the Spitfire was even discovered at all.

Using a metal detector, Jim stumbled on what was first thought to be an insignificant light bulb.

But on closer inspection the team agreed the bulb was not from farm machinery, and when they searched the area further, they found more aircraft parts.

Jim recalled: “We had found an aircraft crash site, but we didn’t know if it was the Spitfire; that discovery had to wait for our next visit.”

Jim and his team also had to satisfy certain Ministry of Defence conditions before they could start to dig in earnest.

According to MoD regulations, before a licence to dig can be granted the aircraft must be positively identified.

In this respect the team struck lucky, for on their second trip to the site they discovered a machine gun cover bearing a hand written serial number.

Now they could conclusively identify the Spitfire – they’d passed the first hurdle.

Secondly, the MoD had to be satisfied that the pilot’s remains had been recovered from the site and properly buried.

Once again the team was in luck, for their research had turned up PO Appel’s death certificate showing where he had been buried.

Now, they could get permission to excavate the aircraft.

Jim said: “This dig was quite an easy one and although we were restricted to digging to depths of only one and a half metres, we were finding pieces from the cockpit at that depth.”

Slowly, Jim and his team unearthed pieces of the plane, and after the land owner gave permission for their removal, the finds were taken, cleaned and documented in preparation for further study.

In a similar procedure to registering Roman artefacts, each find has to be catalogued for a national sites and monuments register.

Then aircraft investigators and historians can start to study the finds in the hope that they will shed more light on the events leading up to the crash.

In their search to find the Spitfire, Jim and his team have already uncovered much of the fascinating history of the aircraft and its pilot.

According to his service records PO Appel was considered a very able pilot, finishing fifth in his class.

At the time of his death he had accumulated 141 hours solo flying on all types of aircraft, including 37 hours on Hurricanes and 31 hours on Spitfires.

During his last patrol the court of inquiry found that he had “neither been in transmission nor reception with the ground.”

And no evidence was found to suggest that PO Appel had attempted to deploy his parachute to bale out of the Spitfire – leading to the assumption that the aircraft hadn’t suffered any structural failure.

Even more information was discovered about the Spitfire itself.

A Mk. II, this type of aircraft first entered service in July 1940, later flying the first daylight fighter sweeps over France.

Like other Mk. IIs before it, this Spitfire was converted into a Mk. V and fitted with a more powerful engine, which also meant that it could carry any combination of the ammunition packages available to Spitfires.

PO Appel’s plane also bore the serial number P8563, identifying it as a presentation Spitfire, which meant that the craft had been paid for through fund-raising by an individual, organisation, town or city.

In the case of P8563 it was paid for by the Lord Mayor of Leicester’s Spitfire Fund.

Such funds were not unusual.

Fund-raising for weapons of war had long been an accepted part of British culture and was wholeheartedly encouraged by Churchill’s government in the 1940s.

Churchill’s Minister for Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook had even gone on record to encourage this type of fund-raising, claiming that just £5,000 was needed for each Spitfire airframe – but in truth this figure was woefully short of the genuine cost of £12,000.

Once sufficient money had been raised, however, the aircraft’s sponsors enjoyed the privilege of having their name stencilled in yellow letters on the side of the Spitfire and it’s been these details and serial numbers that have helped Jim and his team further pinpoint the fated MkII’s provenance.

They’ve been able to prove that PO Appel’s Supermarine Spitfire Mk. IIa, serial number P8563, began its RAF career in July 1941, when it was flown by Sgt. A. Chudek on a mission to northern France.

The Spitfire claimed two Messerschmitt BF109Es near St. Omer, France, and another on August 14 near Calais.

But these airborne victories were not without cost to the plane;two bullets hit the propeller and one hit the wing, but neither strikes were enough to bring the aircraft down.

However, on August 29, 1941, at Wattisham, Suffolk, the Spitfire was involved in a more serious accident and had to be sent to Hampshire for repair and modification.

It was then transported to the RAF’s No. 81 squadron at Ouston, Northumberland, just months before making its final flight.

Now, Jim and his team hope to give the aircraft a final, dignified resting place, by exhibiting their finds from the crash site at either Sunderland Air Museum or at the re-launch of St Mary’s lighthouse Whitley Bay, next month.