Bristol Blenheim MkIF
Nationality: British
Serial number: L1514
Unit: 600 Squadron
Call sign: BQ - N
Date of loss: 10/05/1940
This was one of six Blenheim fighters despatched from RAF Manston during the late morning to attack Waalhaven airfield near Den Haag (Netherlands). This airfield and the beaches along the coast were being used by the invading German airborne forces. The orders for fighters to be used instead of bombers was a War Cabinet decision, as they wished to minimise Dutch civilian casualties.
Nationality: British
Serial number: L1514
Unit: 600 Squadron
Call sign: BQ - N
Date of loss: 10/05/1940
This was one of six Blenheim fighters despatched from RAF Manston during the late morning to attack Waalhaven airfield near Den Haag (Netherlands). This airfield and the beaches along the coast were being used by the invading German airborne forces. The orders for fighters to be used instead of bombers was a War Cabinet decision, as they wished to minimise Dutch civilian casualties.
Arriving over the target at 12.05 hrs, the six Blenheims had begun to strafe the German Junkers 52 transport aircraft when they were "bounced" by Messerschmitt 110 fighters from 3/ZG1. Five out the six aircraft were lost, together with seven crew members killed and two captured. The surviving aircraft, flown by F/O T Hayes, landed badly damaged at Manston.
Pilot Officer Dickie Haine and Pilot Officer Kramer flying in L1514 were among those shot down. Having set one of the enemy Junkers 52 transports on fire, P/O Haine pulled away from the target. As he did so, a cannon shell shattered his canopy and instrument panel; following further hits to both engines, Haine was forced to crash-land on a mudflat near Goeree-Overflakee. During the action, P/O Kramer, the rear gunner, claimed to have shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109, but no Luftwaffe losses tie up with this claim.
Haine and his gunner made contact with the Dutch Army and two days later arrived at The Hague, where the British Air Attaché assisted them. Shortly after they had boarded the destroyer HMS Hereward, Queen Wilhelmina and her party arrived and the ship sailed for Harwich. For their actions, both crew members received the D.F.C.P/O. Dickie Haine survived the war, became a Group Captain and died in 2008.
The artefacts displayed here include a magnetic block from the Bristol Mercury engines and a piece of the aircraft's airframe.
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