Memorial Spitfire PR IB N3069

The text on the plaque next to the memorial is:

On Good Friday the 22nd March 1940 around noon, Spitfire PR IB / PR III, N3069 piloted by Flying Officer Claude Mervyn Wheatley crashed in the area close behind this memorial. The Spitfire Mervyn Wheatley was flying was a highly secret unarmed Photographic Reconnaissance variant capable of reaching altitudes of over 34,000ft. German border patrols detected the high flying Spitfire and immediately two Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me 109E fighter Aircraft were scrambled to intercept him. It was Leutnant Harald Jung who managed with great difficulty to get within firing range at 34,500ft and his guns found their target. Mervyn jumped from his stricken aircraft but sadly hit the tail plan and falling unconscious was unable to deploy his parachute thus falling to his death. He was found in a field just outside the German village of Düffelward approximately three miles South of this location. Flying Officer Mervyn Wheatley was the first Photographic Reconnaisance pilot who lost life in action in World War Two and his Spitfire the first of the type to be lost to the enemy. Mervyn Wheatley was buried that same day with full German military honours at the local cemetery of Düffelward, he was just 26 years old. Het was reinterred on 25 April 1947 to grave 3-F-14 in the Rechswald Forest War Cemetery.

Do you have more information about this location? Inform us!

Source

• Text: Arjan Vrieze
• Photos: Arjan Vrieze