CRASH OF A SPITFIRE
INTO THE SEA 60 MILES NE OF
TRUSCOTT AIRFIELD, WA
ON 8 NOVEMBER 1944

At about 1130 hours on 8 November 1944, LF.VIII Spitfire A58-347 (JG352) ZF-F, piloted by Flying Officer Alfred Richard Harry Palmer (130639), of 549 Squadron RAF, ditched his aircraft into the sea about 60 miles north east of Truscott Airfield. He was part of a flight of six Spitfires led by F/Lt Glaser flying from Darwin Civil Airfield in the Northern Territory to Truscott Airfield in Western Australia. There were three sections, of two aircraft each, in the formation. The six aircraft took off from Darwin Civil Airfield at about 1010 hours.

Blue section was in the middle, with F/Lt Glaser as Blue 1, Green section on his starboard side, with F/Lt Ronald Robert Mills (129390) RAF as Green 1, and Black section on the port side of Blue section led by F/O Palmer. They flew at 1,500 feet due to the 5/10th cloud they encountered most of the way. The aircraft and pilots were as follows:-

At approximately 1130 hours F/O Palmer called on the radio to say his oil pressure was dropping off and that he was going down. F/Lt Glaser told Palmer to gain as much height as he could, jettison his hood, undo his straps and disconnect his R.T., roll his aircraft over on its back and bale out. There was no reply from F/O Palmer and his aircraft began to lose height.

When Palmer's Spitfire was down to about 500 feet, light blue smoke started to stream out behind the aircraft and this increased until he hit the water. F/Lt. Glaser began to climb and orbit to port in order to obtain a fix on the location of the crash.

When Palmer's aircraft had dropped down to about 100 feet he turned into the wind and attempted to land on the water. As soon as the aircraft hit the water with its tail first, its nose went down and the tail went forward well over the vertical. The aircraft then sank. F/Lt Glaser instructed F/Lt Mills to fly to Truscott to organise Air Sea Rescue A.S.R.

The Spitfire had an apparent engine failure due to a breakdown in the lubrication system.

Flight Lieutenant Glaser and his No. 2 orbited the location where the aircraft had ditched for about 20 minutes after the accident and saw nothing come to the surface.

It was a known fact at that time, that Spitfires were extremely difficult to ditch in deep water and that few pilots had succeeded with such a ditching.

REFERENCES

Spitfire A58-347 - AviationHeritage.org

Palmer, Alfred Richard Harry - AviationHeritage.org

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I'd like to thank Daniel Leahy for his assistance with this web page.

Can anyone help me with more information on this crash?

"Australia @ War" WWII Research Products

This page first produced 22 March 2018

This page last updated 03 February 2020