During the morning of 16th July 1942 this aircraft was being given a test flight following maintenance when its pilot flew into thick fog covering the Pennine Hills. The pilot's last radio message stated that he was running out of fuel and nothing more was heard. The weather the following day was equally poor and no trace of the aircraft could be found. On 18th July a farmer spotted the wreckage of an aircraft in the hills of the Forest of Bowland and a rescue party was sent to the scene. The aircraft was found to have crashed on high ground in a remote part of the Forest of Bowland on Wolfhole Crag but there was no trace of the pilot at the crash site. The following day a large party which consisted of RAF, Army, Home Guard and local civilians assisted in a search for the missing pilot who was eventually found in the heather but had died of his injuries. The date on his grave refers to the date he was found. The crash site is within half a mile of where Anson N4919 would crash on 9th February 1944. I located the Anson crash site in July 2010 on possibly an equally poor day to when the Spitfire crashed. The weather put paid to my search for the Spitfire crash site.

Spitfire W3628 was built to contract B.19713/39 by Vickers Armstrong's (Supermarine) Ltd. at Eastleigh and was first test flown on 14th July 1941. Six days later it was flown to 6 MU at Brize Norton and was then taken on charge by 603 Squadron on 24th July 1941, based at Hornchurch. On 11th November 1941 it was flown to AST Ltd. at Hamble for repairs but the nature of the repair is not known when this webpage was created. On 17th December 1941 minor damage resulted on delivery flight after repair, again the nature of the incident not stated but Cat.R/FA was the assessment and it was taken back to AST Ltd. at Hamble for a repair in works (it was probably a take off accident at Hamble). With the repair carried out on 9th February 1942 it was taken on charge by 611 Squadron at Drem then on 13th April 1942 it was transferred to 315 Squadron at Woodvale. As a result of the crash in the Forest of Bowland on 16th July 1942 Cat.E2/FA damage was the assessment of the damage and it was struck off charge nine days later when the paperwork caught up.

Pilot - Sgt Tadeusz T Nawrocki PAF (P/784110), aged 28. Buried Formby, Lancashire.

Tadeusz Nawrocki was born in 30th September 1912.