Former British War Grave Ressegem

On the afternoon of May 16, 1940, there was a dogfight between an English aviator and a German fighter. The British fighter-bomber, a Hawker Hurricane, crashed just behind the castle Du Parc Locmaria, on the border of Ressegem and Herzele. The English pilot was rescued from the burning plane but he was dead. The forester thought that he had been shot above Ressegem and he was buried in Ressegem.
According to oral tradition, the pilot was called "Ashworth".

There is a lot of uncertainty about this incident.
For a long time people remained in the dark about the flight itself and who was at the controls.
There are no references in the register of deaths (Ressegem) in the municipal archives.
The parish registers of Ressegem also contain no mention of a burial or a reference to this grave.
The only reference that it is a British grave can be found in the municipal account where from 1949 a receipt was recorded for the maintenance of this grave, presumably money from the Commonwealth Graveyard Commission.
The payment stops in 1953 where one notes in the margin: grave removed. The remains were reburied anonymously at the Heverlee War Cemetery.

This crashed plane in Herzele-Ressegem is not mentioned on the website "The Belgians remember them", nor is an RAF pilot named Ashworth who died on that date nowhere to be found. If it is not about this pilot, then the question arises who was shot down on May 16, 1940 in Ressegem.
One possibility is that it is Patrick Gifford.
This Scottish lawyer and pilot gained great fame because as a Spitfire pilot he was the first to shoot down a German bomber on October 16, 1939.
There is a hypothesis that he was taken badly burned in an ambulance on the retreat of the British troops and that he died and was buried somewhere along the way.
There are arguments that argue that it should be Patrick Gifford: namely the date of death, the type of Hawker Hurricane with which he flew, the fact that he was near Ressegem where he had to join the British columns as an RAF pilot. to protect.
But nothing can be found in the archives of this pilot and his possible burial in Ressegem either.

The fact is that in the cemetery of Ressegem there is still an anonymous concrete cross in an inconspicuous place against the presbytery wall. It was always said that it was the grave of a British pilot. The nameplate has been removed.

Source : Dirk Van Melkebeke (23 August 2021)

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Source

• Text: Marie-Christine Vinck
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck