On the 3rd September 1940

Pilot Officer C R Bon Seigneur age 22 years

 257 Squadron

Hawker Hurricane P3518

Crashed Galleywood, Essex after combat during The Battle of Britain

On the morning of 3rd September 1940 AT 10.00hrs, A 257 squadron Hurricane, P3518 took off from Martlesham Heath, Suffolk with Pilot Officer. Camille Robespierre Bon Seigneur at the controls



The Excavation Saturday August 10th 1974

On 10th August 1974, the then Essex Historical Aircraft Society carried out their first major excavation the remains of which are displayed at the museum. The team on the dig were ; Fred Dunn, Dave Campbell, Roger Pickett, Robin Hill, Ron Wingrave, Chick Lowin.

The dig started at about 8.30 am and at a depth of three feet (1 metre) the smashed remains of the Rolls Royce Merlin came to the light of day for the first time in thirty four years. Ravaged by corrosion most of the outer casing had rotted away. Other finds include the gun firing button from the spade grip, engine mounts, Rotol propeller boss and the makers plate, confirming this as the aircraft flown by Pilot Officer; Camille Robespierre. Bon Signeur.

The excavation of this Battle of Britain casualty was completed by 16.30 hrs on the same day.

The crash site is now right beside the busy A12 Chelmsford by-pass, between Margaretting and Galleywood the crash site only just being missed when the duel carriageway was built in the 1980s, 50 metres more to the west and it would have covered a Battle Of Britain crash site for ever. I very much doubt that people driving past know what history is a matter of yard's away!

info@aviationmuseum.co.uk

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Ingatestone, September 1940

Camille Bon Seigneur.

“From Air Ministry, P108, deeply regret to inform you that your son, Pilot Officer Camille

Robespierre Bon Seigneur, is reported as having lost his life as the result of air operations on Sept.

3, 1940. Letter follows. The air council express their profound sympathy.”

At their home in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, the telegram was read with dismay by Irene and

Matt Craigen, the young airman’s mother and stepfather. For Matt the news must have been

especially painful because of his decision just a few moths earlier to help buy his stepson out of the

Canadian Army so he could join the RAF and fight in the war in Europe.

Camille’s friend Lorna Obst was devastated when she heard the news on the radio. Though years

younger than Camille, or “Bon” as he was sometimes known by his friends, Lorna had become

close to him as she grew up and regarded him fondly as a favourite older brother. Hearing the

dreadful news she remembered how they used to laugh together when he read her the “funnies” in

the newspaper and how, just before the war, Camille had confided his hopes of joining the RAF to

learn to fly, and his growing determination to be involved in the war against the Nazi menace that

he sensed was looming.

A 22 year old Canadian originally from Gull Lake, Camille travelled a long way to the fateful

morning of Tuesday, 3rd September 1940 when he and his friends in the RAF’s 257 Squadron

battled with the Luftwaffe high in the still, summer sky over Ingatestone, and Bon became a Battle

of Britain casualty, one of the legendary few.

Born on 27th May 1918, Camille was still a baby when his father, Doctor Camille Bon Seigneur,

died in the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the world at the end of the First World War. His

mother Irene remarried and Camille was brought up by her and his stepfather Matt Craigen.

Though small Camille was athletic, at school in Regina he was good at rugby and basketball.

After leaving school, Camille worked for a car dealership for a time but he craved adventure and

joined the Canadian Corps of Signallers. As war clouds gathered over Europe his sense of

adventure and interest in aviation led him to persuade his stepfather to help buy him out of the

Canadian Army so he could volunteer for the RAF. Camille was interviewed by the RAF in

Canada, accepted for a short service commission and in 1939 worked his passage to England on a

cattle boat to begin his new career.

Ingatestone 1940.

The epic air campaign that became known as the Battle of Britain first touched Ingatestone a few

days before 3rd September 1940 when a Hawker Hurricane fighter, serial number P8814 coded

NN Y, of 310 (Czech) Squadron was shot down in a dogfight over the village at lunchtime on 31st

August 1940.

Just after 1.00 pm that day villagers including Roy Sweeting who lived in The Meads, and Allen

Powell who was on deferred service from the RAF, watched a plane spiralling down, obviously in

trouble. As the aircraft fell towards the church Roy remembers it’s engine making an awful howl

before it finally crashed and burned out in fields at Rays Farm. As the plane disappeared from view

Roy spotted a bundle hurtling down, so did his mother who was standing beside him who

screamed, “It’s a bomb!” just before a parachute blossomed open. His Hurricane crippled by a

Messerschmitt 109, Pilot Officer Miroslav Kredba a Czechoslovakian airman who had escaped to

France then Britain after the Germans invaded his homeland had baled out safely.

Watching from the “Leylands”, a house on the outskirts of the village where his sister lived, Allen

Powell realised that the parachute would be coming down close by and climbed into the paddock

behind his sisters home to set off in pursuit. He hadn’t gone far when he met the downed airman

with his parachute bundled under his arm. Kredba was clearly very shaken and Allen recalled that

his first anxious words in halting English were “Me Czech pilot.” The pair walked back to the

Leylands together where they had a cup of tea whilst waiting for the Police. Kredba had been

saved by his parachute, a few days later Camille Bon Seigneur would not be so fortunate.

257 Squadron, 3rd September.

Camille’s 257 Squadron was based at Martlesham Heath in Suffolk also flying Hurricanes. He had

been with the squadron since its formation on 17th May 1940. The unit had been in the thick of the

battle and Camille had first seen action on 19th July when he filed a graphic combat report after an

early morning chase and fight with a Dornier 17P reconnaissance aircraft which ended over the

channel off Brighton.

‘I was about 5 minutes late in leaving the ground and I lost the other two Hurricanes in the take off.

I first saw them when over Staines and they were then about 10 miles away. I was gradually

catching them up when the enemy was sighted. I was then about a 1,000 yards behind the leader

of the section. I dived to reach the enemy aircraft and almost overshot it. It dived into the cloud

and I lost it.

When I resighted it there were about four Hurricanes in line abreast astern of the enemy aircraft. I

closed in above the other fighters and behind and to the side of the attacking fighter. I fired one

short burst of about 2 seconds when at 300 to 400 yards I realised that I was out of range.

All the fighters appeared to close in and I saw several bursts of fire from the fighters go into the

sea. I fired several bursts amounting to about 8 seconds in all.

I saw one fighter close in to almost 50 yards and then it turned away as another fighter came in to

attack and the enemy crashed into the sea.

The crash was about 10 miles from the coast. We circled the spot and saw some wreckage but no

personnel.’

By September the squadron had suffered a number of casualties and morale was low. There was

some criticism of the way the Commanding Officer was leading, in essence the squadron’s two

flight commanders, Flight Lieutenant Hugh Beresford and Flying Officer Lancelot Mitchell, were

holding the unit together.

At around 10.00am on the morning of Tuesday, 3rd September 1940 a large formation of Luftwaffe

Dornier bombers escorted by Messerschmitt 109 and 110 fighters made their way across Essex to

attack the vital RAF sector station at North Weald on the fringe of Epping Forest. Among the RAF

aircraft scrambled to intercept the raid were 12 Hurricanes of 257 Squadron including aircraft serial

number P3518 coded DT V flown by Camille. On this occasion the squadron was being led by the

commanding officer with Camille flying as his number 2 and Sergeant Peter Robinson as number

3.

At about 10.30 am the squadron engaged the enemy near Chelmsford at about 16,000 feet. In the

moments immediately before battle was joined Camille’s Hurricane fell slightly behind the other two

aircraft in his section, he was not seen alive again. As 257 Squadron attacked the enemy bombers

they were in turn attacked by an avalanche of escorting fighters, single engine Me 109s and twin

engined Me 110’s.

In seconds four Hurricanes had been hit. Pilot Officer Kenneth Gundry managed to damage an

Me 109 before part of the tail of his aircraft was blown off and he had to limp back to an emergency

landing at Martlesham Heath. Sergeant Reginald Nutter’s Hurricane was hit in the wings and he

was wounded by shrapnel in the legs, though he too managed to disengage and nurse his

damaged fighter back to base.

Pilot Officer David Hunt remembered later that the squadron was just positioning for an attack on a

formation of bombers when suddenly his cockpit was “lit up with a dazzling array of multi coloured

lights accompanied by explosive concussions.” The cockpit became an inferno of flames burning

his hands, legs and face, much later a bullet was found lodged in his shoulder. Struggling

desperately to abandon his flaming aircraft, David found his cockpit hood had jammed. Trapped in

his burning Hurricane he spent agonising seconds using both hands on one side of the hood

before he was able to wrench it open and escape, landing by parachute after a long descent in the

still summer air at Brook Farm, Margaretting where compassionate villagers used his parachute to

shield his terrible burns from the glare of the sun until an ambulance arrived. He was rushed to

Billericay Hospital where staff who had watched him floating down later said he had looked like a

“burning candle wick” hanging under his parachute. His wife arrived at the hospital later that day

and stayed with him until he was out of danger.

Hunt was later transferred to the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead to become one of the

legendary Guinea Pigs undergoing pioneering reconstructive surgery at the hands of the renowned

surgeon Archibald McIndoe. Although he eventually returned to flying duties with the RAF, Hunt

never flew operationally again. His pilotless Hurricane crashed in a ball of flames on the railway

embankment between Brook Farm and Parsonage Farm, Margaretting.

Camille Bon Seigneur who had travelled all the way from Saskatchewan in Canada to fight in the

air war in Europe was the pilot of the fourth Hurricane to be hit. Eye witnesses on the ground at

Ingatestone told the RAF that they saw an enemy fighter dive onto the tail of Camille’s Hurricane

which turned over on its back and crashed. Camille attempted to bale out but his body was found

with his parachute only partly opened in The Grove, a stand of trees beside Little Hyde Lane,

Ingatestone. An RAF doctor who examined Camille’s body found that he had suffered serious

injuries in the air, including a bullet wound in the nape of the neck so, after escaping his aircraft, he

may not have been able to operate his parachute which partly opened on hitting the trees.

Air Raid Precaution messages for 3rd September state that at 10.40 hours a British fighter crashed

and burned out at Lodge Farm, Galleywood near Killigrews Farm, and that a French Pilot was later

found dead at The Grove, Ingatestone. Years later, in 1974, the Essex Historical Aircraft Society

located the Hurricane’s crash site at Killigrews in a field beside the River Wid and excavated the

surviving remains. The makers plate was found in the wreckage confirming the identity as P3518.

Camille’s body was carefully removed from the Grove using a blanket as a makeshift stretcher and

taken to the hospital mortuary at Chelmsford in the back of a taxi owned by Jack Shuttleworth.

Subsequently Camille was laid to rest in the RAF section of Saffron Walden Cemetary. Sadly, his

grieving parents were not told at the time what had happened to him, or even that had been buried.

In January 1941 they to wrote to the Air Ministry to say that they had been waiting in the hope that

they would be advised exactly what happened to Camille as they believed they had a right to know

just how he had been killed, including if he had been burned or killed in the air and if he had been

buried on land or at sea. They concluded their letter by saying

“Camille was our only child and you can well realise our feelings. We would feel much more

satisfied to know all about it.”

In response the Air Ministry provided further information about the events of 3rd September,

including that Camille’s aircraft was attacked and shot by an enemy aircraft over Ingatestone and

he was buried at Saffron Walden with full service honours. Understandably they did not give full

details about exactly what happened to him.

Of the other airmen mentioned in this article, Miroslav Kredba was wounded on 5th September

1940 just five days after baling out over Ingatestone. After recuperating from his wounds he

returned to operational flying but was killed in a night flying accident in February 1942. Hugh

Beresford and Lance Mitchell, the two flight commanders who were the lynchpins of 257 Squadron

in the summer of 1940, were both posted “Missing” on 7th September 1940, a few days after

Camille was killed. Beresford’s body was found in the deeply buried wreckage of his Hurricane on

the Isle of Sheppy in 1979. Lance Mitchell’s body has never been found and he is presumed to

have crashed in the sea. Ken Gundry was killed in action flying Kittyhawks over the Western

Desert in May 1942.

David Hunt and Reg Nutter survived the war. Both eventually settled abroad, Hunt in New Zealand

and Nutter in Canada. David Hunts wife, Esther Terry Wright, wrote a moving and thought

provoking account of their experiences in 1940 in a book titled “A Pilot’s Wife’s Tale: Diary of a

Camp Follower.” Peter Robinson eventually transferred to Bomber Command. He also survived

the war but died in 1975.

257 Squadron’s controversial Commanding Officer was posted to non-operational duties on 12th

September 1940 and resigned his commission before the end of the war. He was replaced by the

charismatic British ace Bob Stanford Tuck who led the squadron successfully for the remainder of

the Battle of Britain.

In the immortal words of Winston Churchill

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Robin Hill