This photograph was found on "www.littlefriends.co.uk" and credits the aircraft to be Mustang 43-6731 while with 486th Fighter Squadron earlier in the war before transfer to 383rd Fighter Squadron.
On Saturday, 30th June 1945 this aircraft and one other Mustang based at Honington, Suffolk left their airfield and flew towards the north west coast of England possibly to undertake a gunnery practice on ranges at Humphrey Head. At around 10.30hrs this Mustang's engine seen by people on the ground to be emiting black smoke and was also heard misfiring, the aircraft circled the Crosthwaite area for some time while loosing height possibly while the pilot attempted to find somewhere to force land. Before a landing was made it flew through trees loosing part of a wing and then crashed into the roof of Crosthwaite vicarage. It travelled though the roof and then crashed and caught fire in the garden beyond. The Rev William and Mrs Heyes were in the kitchen of the house at the time with an Aunt having coffee when the aircraft crashed. Other local people saw or heard the crash and came to the scene. The pilot was pulled from the cockpit before the fire reached him by Cpt K T Stevens, landlord of the Punch Bowl Inn and Mr Joseph Dixon, of Low Cartmell Fold, but the pilot was found to have died in the crash. The second Mustang with which this Mustang was flying with circled the crash for a time before landing at Cark and the pilot then visited the site that afternoon.
Pilot - 1st Lt Edward W Kortenkirk USAAF (0-825461), aged 22. Buried St.Thomas Aquinas Catholic Cemetery, Waterford, Racine Co. Wisconsin, USA.
Edward Kortendick was born on 23rd July 1922. Little else is currently known about his WW2 service other than he is credited as having shot down an enemy aircraft on 22nd February 1945 and is believed to have joined the 383rd Fighter Squadron in March 1945. He is shown on this 383rd Fighter Squadron group photographs standing on the wing, second from right on back row.
This photograph published in The Westmorland Gazette clearly show how badly damaged the vicarage was at Crosthwaite.