Memories of another plane crash

I have followed with interest the crashed Lancaster story at Parkes Farm on Audlem Online and would add one of my own.

Through the war I lived in the row of houses in Wybunbury that are located on the bank high above the road and leading down hill from the Delves School.

One day, fairly early in the war, a Spitfire came low over the houses with the engine popping and banging. It soon disappeared over Parton's field and subsequently made a wheels up forced landing.

As a schoolboy, I was of course very interested and anxious to know how it had fared. With some pals I later went in search of it and came across it straddling the Audlem road about 400 yards beyond the Boar's Head.

We crept up along the hedgerows to get a closer look and were soon spotted by the policeman who had been sent to guard it. The old devil would not let us close in because he said the cannons were loaded and dangerous.

It had landed in Parton's field and bounced a couple of times tearing out a goodly lump of turf. Then, with the remaining kinetic energy, it had burst through the hedge into the road and stopped with its engine in one hedge and the tail in the other, the wings having taken a lump of hedge with it. I believe that I can see a portion of damaged hedge even now.

The pilot, probably in need of clean trousers and a nerve-steadying double Scotch, had repaired to the Boar's Head.

(Audlem Online adds: We have not been able to trace a photograph of this actual Spitfire crash. Our photo shows one of the original batch of the legendary planes after it crashed.)

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