Excavations > 2009>

	Spitfire MkIX , Gower

Spitfire PT766 was excavated in 1975 by the long disbanded ‘South Wales Historic Aircraft Preservation Society’ and the Merlin engine recovered. A chance conversation with one of the original diggers suggested that most of the aircraft’s structure had simply been thrown back into the hole. Interest was particularly sparked by his description of a large section of yellow painted wing leading edge which ‘kept popping up’ and had to pushed down with the JCB bucket during the filling in.
Interest aroused, a visit was made to Bishopston. The landowner was very interested, his father having witnessed the crash from the next field. He also had a piece which he had ploughed up, a two foot long section of lower rear fuselage with mass balance weights and datum plate. A Fischer survey suggested a lot of Spitfire remained. With licence granted a trial hand dig brought up some promising, if jumbled items. Parts of the instrument panel, rudder, wing, rear fuselage skinning and the front frame of the canopy with the release catch ‘ears’ and a yellow painted plastic release cable. All this came from a small hole and with further digging prevented by solid wreckage.
Welsh holiday weather postponed the machine dig for the summer, but by October 2009 the field was harvested and the ground dried out. The landowner also ran a plant contracting business and appeared at the site with a mini digger to begin the excavation. It didn’t take long before he had to retire to his farm to fetch a bigger digger.
The first parts to emerge were the remains of a caravan, probably not Supermarine, followed by the obligatory broken garden fork. The first bits of Spitfire were in very poor condition, with corrosion having reduced some components to dust. There was no particular order to the wreckage, nor the characteristic smell of fuel. There was, however, an awful lot of aeroplane. The first identifiable pieces were a section of windscreen frame with catch release button and a soberingly flattened compass. The top section of main spar and trailing edge were carried out of the hole and at about five feet depth the JCB bucket hit something more substantial. Careful scraping revealed a large section of wing spar, with cannon mounts poking out from silver painted spar. It took considerable pulling from the machine to free it completely, revealing some eight feet of wing leading edge ballooned around the spar from the impact. Something of a Spitfire celebrity panel of experts were in attendance for the dig and very little remained unidentified on the day. The quantity of wing remains was unusual, wings almost never being buried even in high speed crashes. This reinforced the suggestion that the recovery crew in 1946 had simply cleared the wreckage lying in the field back into the hole. It was clear, however, that the 1975 excavation had not simply been a scramble for the engine and that the remains had been carefully sifted before their reinternment. It was later learned that the throttle box went to a restoration in Australia and a gentleman attending the dig had parts of it in his Seafire project. The engine was on display at Rhoose airport where SWHAPS had a musum, but it’s whereabouts are unknown since the museum closed.
In all, five builder's sand sacks were filled with wreckage, with enough structural components to lay out the very approximate shape of the aircraft. It is hoped that some of the larger items recovered can be displayed locally as a memorial to its pilot, Flying Officer Abbott, and to the other airmen lost over the Gower.
The aircraft was one of a batch of 690 Spitfire Mk IX aircraft delivered between June and October 1944 by Vickers Armstrongs, Castle Bromwich. Delivered to 33 Maintenance Unit on 8th August it was prepared for operational service and joined 345 Squadron on the 1st of September 1944. 345 was a Free French squadron comprising pilots of the Vichy French air force who had chosen to side with the Allies following the capitulation of their forces in North Africa. PK766 was used as the personal aircraft of the squadron commander Jean-Mary Accart, who had been a leading French pilot in the Battle of France, claiming 12 shared victories over the invading Luftwaffe. Accart flew under the pseudonym ‘Bernard’.

03/09/1944 GUIZARD firing test
06/09/1944 VUILLEMAIN Canon test
06/09/1944 OULMAN Aileron test
10/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Ops Red 1
10/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Engine and R/T test
11/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Ops Red 1
16/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Ops
17/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Ops
21/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Deanland - Paris and back
23/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Ops
26/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Ops
30/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Deanland - Manston
30/09/1944 ACCART/BERNARD Ops Escort Lancs
(Thanks to Bertrand from RAF Commands forum for ORB extract)

PK766 was damaged in a landing collision on the 30th September and repaired on site. Any information on any remaining service is sought. On 24th January 1945 it was transferred to Air Services Training at Exeter and on the 15th July joined 595 Squadron at RAF Fairwood Common for army co operation duties. It was being flown by Flying Officer James Stuart Abbott on 21st March 1946 when it dived into the ground out of cloud at Bishopston, Gower. The pilot is buried at Killay (S. Hilary of Poictiers) Churchyard. Flying Officer Abbott had succeeded in force landing a Miles Martinet aircraft a few months before.
At the completion of the dig plaques were presented to the landowner, eyewitness and tenant to commemorate this post war tragedy.

	Jean-Mary Accart posing with PT766. Follow the link for further details of this pilot.
	Members of the ‘South Wales Historic Aircraft Preservation Society’ take the engine from the crash site in 1975.
	Although the engine was taken away in 1975, most of the airframe had been reburied - to be uneathed again 34 years later.
	The sections recovered were identified and catalogued; some may find their way into re-building projects.