ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 166750
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| Date: | Saturday 7 February 1942 |
| Time: | day |
| Type: |  Supermarine Spitfire Mk IIa |
| Owner/operator: | 416 (City of Oshawa) Sqn RCAF |
| Registration: | P7982 |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | RAF Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | Standing |
| Nature: | - |
| Departure airport: | RAF Peterhead, Aberdeenshire |
On 6 February 1942 Flt Lt John Douglas Keynes, the British commander of B Flight, 416 Sqn RCAF, attempted to take off from the icy runway of Peterhead airfield but his Spitfire IIA P7982 DN-M skidded into a snowbank and crashed. He was uninjured but the fighter was heavily damaged. The same day ten Stirlings landed at Peterhead during the afternoon. They belonged to 15 and 149 Sqn that had tried to attack the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord on the night of 30-31 January. They had taken off from Lossiemouth to return to their bases more south but when the aircraft became badly iced up, they diverted into Peterhead and stayed overnight.
The next day (7 February), in the morning, the Stirling N6086 LS-F of 15 Sqn RAF, nicknamed "MacRobert's Reply", was the second of the four aircraft of 15 Sqn to take off to return to their home base of Wyton. Just before getting airborne, it lost power on both port engines, slewed off the runway at about 70 knots, and crashed into Spitfire P7982 that had not been removed since its crash the day before. The Stirling finished up with its nose in the mud, the port undercarriage bent, and the Spitfire jammed under the tail, for they had dragged it. The crew (two names known, Flg Off P J S Boggis (pilot) and Sgt Stanley Smith) escaped with only a few bruises, and within 45 minutes were aboard another aircraft of the squadron and flying to Wyton.
Stirling N6086 never flew in combat again but it was repaired and flew as part of an Operational Training Unit (OTU). The "MacRobert's Reply" name was then transferred to another Stirling on 15 Sqn, W7531. The Spitfire IIa was damaged beyond repair (Category E).
Sources:
ORB of 416 Sqn RCAF, February 1942 (available online at http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c12287/14?r=0&s=3)
http://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/Keynes.htm
http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p005.html
http://www.macrobertsreply.com/
"The Stirling Story", by Michael J. F. Bowyer. ISBN 0-947554-91-2
http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?10344-Sevice-Numbers-35-Sqn-1938-request
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Peterhead
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=57.517000&lon=-1.875000&z=13&m=b
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 05-Jun-2014 07:22 | angels one five | Added |
| 24-May-2015 19:55 | Dandy | Updated [Operator, Location, Nature, Departure airport] |
| 24-May-2015 20:11 | Iwosh | Updated [Aircraft type, Operator] |
| 06-Dec-2016 07:41 | angels one five | Updated [Aircraft type] |
| 30-Jan-2018 16:53 | Laurent Rizzotti | Updated [Date, Nature, Source, Narrative] |
| 02-Feb-2021 20:53 | angels one five | Updated [Time, Other fatalities, Narrative] |
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