Allied – P38 – J 42-67943

Those who were on the island to witness the plane crash were left in a state of bewilderment. On the tragic day of July 22, 1944, several people had the mistaken belief that the only plane that went down was the one that ended up crashing, but this turned out to be tragically false. at point of fact, it was two P38s flown by Lieutenant L. Murphy and Lieutenant M. Burr, both of whom were serving with the 370th Fighter Group of the 9th Air Force and operating out of their base at Andover.

Around 18:45, they were flying in formation when, for some reason, Lt. Burr’s aircraft abruptly jerked to the right. It seems that this happened for no apparent cause. After a few seconds, it made its way closer to Lt. Murphy’s right hand propeller from the left, piercing deeply through the cockpit canopy of Burr’s aircraft as it did so. Murphy, who had just one engine and was losing gasoline, made the decision to make a dash for shore as quickly as possible and abandon the aircraft. He was able to safely eject from the aircraft and float down to the ground, where he landed near to a gun site around one mile away from Brading. The only injury he had was a minor one to his ankle. After that, he was brought to witness the wreckage of his aircraft, which had crashed on part of Brading Vicarage, as stated in the weekly report that was published in the County Press on July 29, 1944. His colleague pilot perished in the crash.

After hearing about the accident over the radio traffic, two other pilots decided to break formation in order to search for Lt. Burr’s aircraft. On the other hand, all they could locate was a slick of oil and a few pieces of debris drifting out in the ocean. Neither 2nd Lieutenant Burr nor his aircraft was ever located after the search was conducted.

Note: All images are merely representative of the aircraft and not specific.

• All images are of similar aircraft and not the specific plane in question
• Wight Air Wrecks – A T Gilliam ISBN 0-7524-2376-2
• Battle in the Skies – H J Leal (IWCP)