Messerschmitt Bf109E-3 Wk No 1190 displayed at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
It is September 30th 1940, the Battle of Britain is nearing its close and Unteroffizier Horst Perez is in trouble.
After failing to link up with the bombers he was supposed to be protecting he and his wingman were bounced by Spitfires. He has shaken off his pursuers but now the engine of his Messerschmitt Bf109 has died and all he can hear is the air rushing past his cockpit.
Frantically he searches the fields of Sussex below and picks a field near East Dean to attempt a crash landing. He glides the stricken fighter down with its wheels still retracted; he does not want to risk the aircraft turning over and imprisoning him in the cockpit.
The landing is almost gentle as the Messerschmitt slides onto the stubble, its windmilling propeller bending as it ploughs into the soil.
Unteroffizier Horst Perez is destined to spend the rest of the war in captivity in Canada but his aircraft is about to go traveling.
The Messerschmitt Bf109E-3 that Perez landed in the Sussex field had already seen combat with the fighter unit JG 26 in the Battles of France and Britain. It is believed to have been previously flown by Gruppen Kommandeur Hauptmann Karl Ebbighausen of 11/JG26 who used it to shoot down five Allied aircraft.
The aircraft was not badly damaged and followed its pilot to Canada on a ‘Bundles for Britain’ fundraising tour before being displayed throughout America for the rest of the war. People who made a contribution towards clothing for Britain could view the aircraft and later on, scratch their name in the paintwork, where they can still be seen.
Afterwards, it was forgotten until it was rescued from a scrap yard in the 1960s. The Imperial War Museum acquired it in 1998 with the support of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
The Bf 109E has been restored, but one wing has been conserved as found in the scrapyard complete with the names scratched onto it. It is now displayed in the Imperial War Museum at Duxford in a setting that recreates Perez’s crash landing.
