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

THE MYSTERY OF THE TOLMARE FARM SPITFIRE — 1940

Copyright Valerie Martin 2010

Have you any knowledge or details that you can let me have of one of our Spitfires coming down on Tolmare Farm agricultural land in full view of the Long Furlong (A280) road?    Originally when delving into wartime records of this area I met a blank wall with this one.

I had a first hand account of the crash but could find no official records to back it up.   A Findon village boy at the time, the late Tony Hammond recalled to me a few years back how he rushed to the scene of the crash approximately a hundred yards south of the lime kiln in the field on the right of the A280 heading west. 

He arrived at the incident just in time to see the spectacular Spitfire with its eight Browning machine-guns mounted in the wings, being swiftly loaded on to a special lorry by a posse of Royal Air Force personnel.    No little lads were allowed to hang around the site looking for souvenirs that day but they did try.

I was unable to locate anything further on this crash and it did not appear to be documented but I was a staunch believer in Tony Hammond's account of happenings on that particular day.   

Thankfully,  this was confirmed in July 2011 when talking to Dennis Weston who lives in Findon.    He was a lad at the time of the crash and also walked out to see the aircraft as Tony did (it didn't appear to be much damaged) and he said that the pilot was foreign (perhaps Polish) and was standing by the wayside unharmed and waiting to be picked up.   Dennis calculated that this happened in roughly 1940 as he was about 9-years old and living at Rose Cottage in the village.

Continue to read about The High Salvington Messerschmitt Bf-110

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