Spitfire Crash at Lount - a Sequel

Readers may recall our article in the July issue of the Community Voice describing a tragic accident during the Second World War on October 3rd 1943 in which two spitfires collided in mid-air over Lount. William Spare, his wife and other villagers, rescued one pilot, Flight Sgt. Robert Mehuys a Belgian national, from his crashed aircraft but the pilot of the other spitfire was killed when he unsuccessfully attempted to parachute from his stricken aircraft and his parachute caught fire. Subsequently a number of readers contacted the Coleorton Heritage Group with information and memories of this tragedy.

Contemporary reports record that some of the machine guns with which the aircraft were equipped had gone missing and were assumed to have been taken by souvenir hunters (a serious offence). The police made an unsuccessful appeal for their return. Paul Spare, the grandson of William Spare above, told us through his friend David Garner, that in about 1956 as a school boy playing in the woods he had actually found one of the machine guns under the trees together with its ammunition belt. His father handed the gun in to Ashby Police Station. It may be that it had been left there near the road for later collection by souvenir hunters or it may be just as likely that it had fallen from one of the aircraft following the collision. Paul's grandparents received a letter of appreciation from the Under-Secretary of State at the Air Ministry and a telegram from Hubert Pierlot, the Belgian Minister for National Defence thanking them for their rescue of Robert Mehuys. Paul tells us that his grandfather worked as a watchman at the old Lount pipe works where Roll-Royce was storing engine parts.