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

THE MYSTERY OF THE CENTRAL AVENUE SPITFIRE — 7th May 1944

Copyright Valerie Martin 2010

A Spitfire was reported to have belly-landed at Central Avenue in Findon Valley during the Second World War on 7th May 1944.   Originally, I had no further details but as I was given a precise date, it must have happened.

I thought, of course, the bland description of "Central Avenue"  might purely be an approximate description of the location and the nearest convenient reference point to the actual crash site. The Spitfire could have landed in the middle of the road or in the meadows at the eastern end.

I did know that the pilot was unhurt and this infers that it was probably a planned forced landing for some reason in the Central Avenue vicinity.

John J. Fisher from Worthing emailed at the end of September 2010 to say that a Spitfire could not have landed actually in Central Avenue because he was 6-years old in 1944 and would have remembered such an event.   At the time, he had lived in the Findon Road about a 100 yards south of Central Avenue.  He did remember his mother taking him to see a crashed Spitfire in the Shipdens Holt area.    He remembered there was a soldier (Home Guard?) keeping an eye on it.

I was relieved to receive a email next from Mike Cooksey in Bristol confirming...  "Hi Valerie....There was certainly a plane, I think a spitfire, which force landed in the field in line with Central Avenue. I remember thinking how lucky he was, not to have hit any of the anti-gliders posts that had been erected in those fields to counter any potential German glider landings".

click to enlarge

Both of my local inhabitants at the time of the Second World War agreed on the location of the crash as being in the meadow to the east of Central Avenue.... as shown.

 

Continue if you would like to read about Billy Patience