THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — These Findon Chronicles created by Valerie Martin, contain scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE HIGH SALVINGTON HEINKEL He 111P — Friday 16th August 1940

Copyright Valerie Martin 2008

Part published in Sussex Local in February and March 2008

FOLLOWING the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk, August and September of 1940, witnessed many intense air battles fought in our sky.

For instance on Tuesday, 13th August 1940 an RAF Hurricane based at nearby Tangmere shot down a Junkers Ju 88 over Arundel.  The German pilot attempted a “soft” crash-landing on the waters of Swanbourne Lake in Arundel Park but his plane struck a beech tree on the western bank and the Junkers careered down the steep embankment, breaking  itself to smithereens.    Two of the crew of four had already baled out and were taken prisoner.    Another was found dead hanging in a nearby tree........while the parachute of the fourth fouled the tail of the Junkers as he baled out and he was unceremoniously dragged to his death.   In the summer of 1989, Swanbourne Lake dried out and subsequently revealed remnants of the Junkers still buried in the mud.    It contained four of its unexploded bombs!

Friday 16th August 1940 it was just like any other typical summer's day in Findon, fairly warm with haze over the English Channel.

That is until around midday when radar stations along the South Coast indicated a menacing display of enemy aircraft beginning to build up on their screens. The threat included around a hundred bombers massing off Cherbourg with their sights on the Portsmouth and Southampton districts.

Fighter Command despatched some twelve Squadrons from 10, 11 and 12 Groups and soon the sky was full of skirmishing aircraft.  

Twin-engined Heinkel He 111P aircraft, (1582) code G1+FR, was from the 7th Staffel Unit, "Greif"  Kampfgeschwader 55 and based at Villacoublay in France and on a sortie to attack the Great West Aerodrome (now known as Heathrow) and this it successfully carried out.   This Heinkel become famous in Findon because it was the first enemy aircraft to be shot down in our area at the height of the Battle of Britain and caused much excitement as you can imagine.

At 16.55 hrs on that day Royal Air Force fighters intercepted them over the Brighton area.   Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1 of 602 Squadron, City of Glasgow, based at Westhampnett near Chichester was the first to pick up the Heinkel.   The air-raid warning siren went off at about 5 p.m. in Findon. 

The Heinkel was next located flying over the Worthing Golf Course pursued by Royal Air Force fighters from Blue Section of 602 Squadron.  Findon villagers heard the sound in the air grow closer as a dogfight broke out.   Firing was heard and the aircraft appeared to be extremely low.  The drone of a crippled aircraft right overhead followed more firing and “thud thud”.    It was a Friday to be remembered.    Success for one and disaster for the other.

The recognisable growl came from the German twin-engined Heinkel 111 passing too low for comfort from the north over Findon Farm and the Horsham Road area.  It was riddled with bullets received from a Spitfire.  Brian W. Chappell, a schoolboy at the time (and still living in West Sussex), told me that the bomber strafed the houses on the west side of The Oval and seemed to barely clear the roofs of the properties as it threw a shadow over the old Findon Fire Station.  At this point, Brian remembers that his mother told him to draw the curtains. 

The Spitfire's pilot, Flight Lieutenant Robert Finlay Boyd reported:

The Spitfire pilot had shot down his very first enemy aircraft, (a Dornier Do17 on 15th August 1940 only the day before the Heinkel incident).     On the 16th August 1940 he had shot down a Junkers 87 within a minute of taking off, and later in the day shared in the "kill" of our Heinkell 111P with other members of 602 Squadron.

On Friday 16th August 1940 the mauled Heinkel 111P limped on, low over Findon's Rogers farmland and men working on a hayrick, leaped off as the aircraft appeared to be heading straight for them and then skimmed the treetops as it roared overhead.  The farm workers held their breath in terror at that moment.  One can only imagine what went through the pilot's mind but he was experienced enough to struggle with the controls and obtained enough lift to clear the downland.  

Some members of the Royal Artillery personnel were manning a sandbagged twin Lewis Machine gun emplacement on the western edge of Cote Street.   They immediately spun the Lewis round to spend a final few rounds at the enemy.      Unfortunately, the gunner's assistant was unable to clear one of the barrels quite in time as they swung round.   He subsequently sustained an injury to an earlobe as the bullets whizzed straight through the side of his tin helmet !   Nevertheless, everyone swung into action.   The gunner kept his gun trained on the German bomber while his colleagues approached the crash site to take the Germans as prisoners.  

Meanwhile, the severely damaged heavy bomber had made a forced landing down the course of Cote Street and ended up in what is now the open field between Honeysuckle Lane and Cote Street.    Honeysuckle Lane was such a well-known dumping ground for unsightly fly-tippers at this time that it was nicknamed "Dustbin Lane" by the Findonians.    A fitting end to the mission where earlier this enemy aircraft had successfully been dropping bombs on the Great West Aerodrome (now known as Heathrow).

After striking the ground, the bomber gouged a 400-yard ugly swathe through the prickly gorse, heading straight towards the chalk pit at the top of Cote Street near Honeysuckle Lane.   It gradually sliced deeper and deeper chunks out of the grassland and scrub before finally coming to rest in a relatively smooth emergency landing in an open field within two or three hundred yards of the Lewis machine gun emplacement mentioned previously.     The Heinkel ended up facing south-west looking over towards Highdown Hill.   Its nose was in some scrubby bushes..... and it is said the aircraft was only five yards from a hen coop.  Once on the ground it looked intact and harmless.  A lone Spitfire circled overhead making sure that this was the end and then returned to RAF Westhampnett.

The remainder of the crew were still in the Heinkel. It was precisely 17.05.   It was said to be the first enemy bomber to be shot down more or less complete..... even though it was substantially riddled with some 400 British bullets.

The surviving flight crew had obviously been somewhat shaken by their encounter over the Findon skies and kept holding their hands in the air and shouting...

"Ach Spitfire"

The crew were....

Leutnant Rudolf Theopold, 20-year-old, pilot, minor cuts and bruises, captured.
Unteroffzier Rudolf Hornbostel, 25-year old, observer, badly injured and captured.
Gefreiter Helmut Glaser, Observer, 22-year old, wireless engineer,  badly wounded and captured.
Gefreiter Johannes Moorfeld,  24-year old, gunner (Confirmed dead by a lady doctor at the crash site.   Other reports state he died on the way to Worthing Hospital).
Unteroffzier Albert Weber , 31-year-old flight engineer, (Confirmed dead by a lady doctor at the crash site).

German aircrew were often mortified to think of what their captors would do to them — after hearing the German propaganda.   For instance, one of the above wounded was terrified of what would happen to him.  He was married with a 9-month old baby and his first request was to let his wife know that he was alive.

Andrew Miles (one time Worthing resident) emailed from Ontario to say in October 2010.... "I've read lots of accounts where German pilots and crew were brainwashed about the supposed cruelty of the English, only to find that, after bailing out or crashing on English soil, the Germans were usually shocked to find the locals tending their wounds, giving them cups of tea and cigarettes.

Having said that, however, I had an aunt who, when a teenager, was crippled by German machine-gun bullets. She had been walking along a Worthing street and a German plane came down low and emptied its guns on the defenceless civilians below.  She received some richochets in her back. She probably would have been killed if she had been directly hit. 

My mum also remembers narrowly escaping a similar hit-and-run raid.

In the case of my family, there would have been no cups of tea and a smoke. Had a German officer parachuted into my grandfather's garden on Westcourt Road, he would have found himself at the business end of the garden fork".

Here is another reminder of The Day of the Heinkel ....

The "all-clear" sounded at 6.45 p.m. following the High Salvington crash.   Sightseers tore off through Honeysuckle Lane to be the first to salvage a souvenir from the first German warplane to descend upon our area.   I doubt if they could even begin to imagine how much these relics would fetch in later years when they were sold on.    Some fetched good prices on Ebay too.   I have grave doubts as to the provenance of some of these so-called artefacts and I would keep my money in my pocket for fear of hoaxes.

I have heard from Mike Haspey who had the original tail wheel from this particular Heinkel still bearing the original RAF Salvage Form attached.    He said the axle still ran through the wheel and had been chipped out both sides of the wheel when salvaged.

There was one British casualty in the drama of the Heinkel crash.    When the aircraft was removed, a dead rabbit was found beneath the wreckage.

Two days later, some 150 sightseers gathered to get a slice of the action around the German bomber (the scene had grown into a Sunday afternoon's outing by now) and had been roped off and guarded by an armed sentry.    The German machine guns had been removed and laid alongside the wreckage on the ground.

At about 4 p.m. the armed sentry posted on duty, packed up and went home.   The crowd started to move forward ..... and then literally swarmed upon the German prize and helped themselves to souvenirs.   You must admit that if you had been around at the time, you too would have joined in.  It was said that the noise was deafening with everyone hammering away for a slice of the action.   A few adventurous hunters either pulled or pushed switches and released what appeared to be compressed air.   The noise frightened everyone and they thought the Heinkel was about to explode.... and they hastily retreated ... but only momentarily.

Some had come conveniently prepared with hacksaws and it was not long before the Swastika tail was severed from the aircraft.  The Heinkel began to show signs of the damage it had encountered not by the RAF but by the marauding souvenir hunters taking home armoured cabling and metal.  

The mid-fuselage gun canopy, having been removed, exposed the foot well, which contained many spent bullet cartridges that were swilling around in an inch of blood.  One particular flight crew member must have died an awful death from his horrific injuries.

This is reputed to be part of the tail of the above Heinkel.   Someone helpful scratched the location it was taken from but spelled the name incorrectly!

Continue to read Derek Round and the Heinkel

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This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.