On 9th September 1944 this aircraft was being flown on a training flight as part of the training programme at 53 O.T.U. In the air was at least one other aircraft of the same training unit, while the precise details of the training flight are not yet known when this webpage was created during the course of the flight this aircraft and the other Spitfire flew so close to each other that they touched wing tips. I would speculate that formation flying training was being undertaken at the time of the collision. Control of both aircraft appears to have been re-gained, one of the aircraft made a safe landing (probably back at base at Kirton in Lindsay) while the pilot of Spitfire BL370 appears to have tried to force land the aircraft on the bank of the junction of the River Ouse near Sinefleet. Unfortunately the attempted landing was not a success and on touching down on the soft mud the aircraft crashed. Sadly the Belgian pilot was killed as a result of the accident. Due to the nature of where the crash occurred the wreckage was not recovered at the time, it also appears that it took some time to recover the pilot's body as his death was not registered until the next yearly quarter and he is listed as being buried on 12th October 1944 (over a month after his death). I have not yet indentified the other aircraft, or pilot involved or where this aircraft landed.
Pilot - F/Sgt Jacques Maurice Paul Hubert Ghislain Weyemberg RAFVR, aged 20, of Belgium. Initially buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey. Now buried Belgian Pelouse d'Honneur Cemetery, Evère, Brussels, Belgium.
Jacques Weyemberg was born on 7th September 1924 at Brussels. He left Belgium in 1940 and went towards Africa, via Spain and Portugal arrived in Belgian Congo on 18th September 1940. He later arrived in the UK and was receiving training at 53 OTU when he died. He was initially buried on 12th October 1944 but was later exhumed and re-buried in the Belgian Pelouse d'Honneur Evère near Brussels on 20th October 1949.
In the 1970s Messers Cantin and Shaw dug at the crash site and uncovered at least part of a wing, probably resulting from this also in the 1970s a cadet group in the Goole area recovered the canons. Beginning in 1983 historians Steve Arnold and Julian Mitchell recovered the rest of the aircraft and over the next twelve years it was being restored to a ground running condition until they ran out of money and they sold the aircraft at auction. During this time a legal dispute ensued because a Mr Arthur Woolass had apparently made a salvage claim on the wreck with the Receiver of Wrecks (my note; possibly because he believed that aircraft wrecks and their recovery operated in the same way and shipwrecks). The sale of the aircraft appears to have been challenged in court but cannot have been successful because the sale went through and it was bought by an American. It was transported to the USA where the rebuild was completed. It is now housed at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. I credit "www.oxcot-mvt.org" with information shown on this webpage.