ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 22038
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| Date: | Tuesday 29 October 1940 |
| Time: | 16:40 |
| Type: |  Hawker Hurricane Mk I |
| Owner/operator: | 257 (Burma) Sqn RAF |
| Registration: | P3893 |
| MSN: | DT-S |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Moreton, near RAF North Weald, Essex, England -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | Take off |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | RAF North Weald, Essex |
Hurricane P3893/S: On Tuesday October 29 at 16:40 hours, RAF North Weald was attacked by the enemy using a new tactic. Messerschmitt Bf 109 single seat fighters of 11(5) LG.2 zoomed in at low level, each carrying a single bomb, to attack machines on the ground.
Although warned, the Hurricane's of 257 Squadron were caught at the point of take off by the fleeting enemy attack. A flight of three machines, V6852 flown by Sergeant Alexander G Girdwood, only recently returned to operations after being wounded, P3893 flown by Polish Pilot Officer Franik Surma, and a third machine flown by the ace Robert Stanford-Tuck, were blasted by a bomb as they reached flight speed. Stanford-Tuck's machine survived the explosion virtually unscathed: the other two Hurricanes were not so lucky.
Girdwood's aircraft (V6852) took the brunt of the blast, crashing instantly into the ground and killing the pilot. Surma's aircraft (P3893) was severely damaged. Fortunately the Hurricane was coaxed into the air as Surma struggled for sufficient height prior to abandoning it. Taking to his parachute, the pilot found himself floating down over Moreton, to the east of RAF North Weald. The Hurricane crashed in a rubbish dump to the south of the village.
Franik Surma's past was about to catch up with him. Prior to arrival in the British Isles, he had seen some service with the short lived Polish Air Force. An earlier encounter with the Luftwaffe had left him in possession of a fine leather flying jacket, complete with Nazi insignia. Thus equipped, the RAF pilot was drifting down onto the Essex landscape equipped with only a sparse knowledge of the English language and a very gutteral accent!
It was fortunate that his meeting with terra-firma was forestalled by a line of elm trees adjoining the village pub. His parachute tangled with the vegetation and left him suspended beyond reach of the ground.
At this point two slightly different variations on his subsequent rescue exist. One, the least tasteful, has it that two French sailors climbed up to the helpless pilot and attempted to entangle his Germanic neck in the parachute shrouds before help arrived. The second, acceptable, version of his rescue simply places two Dutch merchant seamen in the role of straight rescuers.
When brought to the ground the worried Surma was whisked off to North Weald in a large Hispana Suiza sent to collect him. Both versions of the story admit to his survival - and the swift removal of the offending insignia from the prized jacket!
Sources:
1. Royal Air Force Aircraft P1000-P9999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1978 p 46)
2. http://www.nwamuseum.co.uk/WESTESSEXcrashesMishaps3WW2.pdf
3. https://www.essexinfo.net/mblpc/assets/documents/alleluya-june-july-2016
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franciszek_Surma
5. http://aircrewremembered.com/surma-franciszek.html
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 03-Aug-2008 11:55 | Anon. | Added |
| 04-Jan-2012 15:06 | Nepa | Updated [Operator, Location, Destination airport, Narrative] |
| 07-Jan-2012 01:27 | Nepa | Updated [Aircraft type] |
| 18-Jan-2012 10:15 | Nepa | Updated [Operator, Destination airport] |
| 28-May-2019 00:17 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Date, Time, Registration, Cn, Operator, Location, Phase, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative] |
| 28-May-2019 00:18 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Narrative] |
| 28-May-2019 00:23 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Time, Narrative] |
| 30-May-2019 12:45 | stehlik49 | Updated [Operator] |
| 21-Jul-2022 12:36 | Nepa | Updated [Time, Location, Narrative, Operator] |
| 21-Jul-2022 12:57 | Nepa | Updated [Operator, Operator] |
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