UNIQUEBATTLE OF BRITAINCOLLECTION FROM ONEOF “THE FEW”GOESONDISPLAY
COLLECTION OF EXHIBITS REMEMBERING THE SACRIFICE OF PILOT OFFICER FREDERICK CECIL HARROLD FEATURES IN THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM’S “EXPLORE HISTORY 1940” PROJECT
PILOT Officer Frederick Cecil Harrold was on only the third operational sortie of his RAF career when his Hawker Hurricane, P3417, was engaged by Messerschmitt Bf 109s over the Kent coast at Deal. The 23- year-old pilot was shot down and killed, his aircraft falling to earth
at Strawberry
Plantation, Ulcombe, near Dover.
Harrold’s parents received his body from the RAF for burial; his funeral was subsequently held at St Andrew’s
Cherry Hinton,
flying at heights of up to 30,000 feet. At this altitude only Spitfires could reach them. This meant that Hurricanes, such as that flown by Harrold, were largely ineffective. As one Hurricane pilot, Richard Barclay of 249 Squadron, complained: “We had hundreds of 109s above us ... an awful trip as we were quite helpless, just waiting to be attacked.”
That day, 28 September 1940, saw sixteen British aircraft shot down. Five pilots, including Pilot Officer Frederick Harrold, were killed.
Now, thanks to the new “Explore History 1940” exhibition that has opened at the Imperial War Museum in London, some of the items found on Pilot Officer Harrold after his death, and which were bequeathed to the museum by his sister, can be viewed by the general public.
Churchyard, near
Cambridge. They also took the decision to carefully preserve a remarkable collection of
items recovered at the same time as his body. These included his pilot’s “wings”, unstitched from a muddy and torn service dress jacket and which they attached to a photograph frame, a dented cigarette case, an identity tag, a religious talisman, and even a bent house-key.
Harrold completed his training in July 1940 and within the course of just three days crashed two aircraft! On 12 July 1940, he crashed Blenheim L1177 at Maiden Bradley,Wiltshire, and on the 15th crashed Blenheim L6597 into the River Severn. Harrold then converted to Hurricanes, joining 25 Squadron atMartleshamHeath on 12 August beforemoving to 151 Squadron at Stapleford a week later. On 26 September he transferred to 501 Squadron based at Kenley.
Two days after his arrival at Kenley there was a change of tactics by the Luftwaffe. Instead of the usual large formations of bombers, Generalfeldmarschall
Kesselring
despatched a number of smaller formations of bombers to act as “bait” to drawthe British fighters into the air. They would then be attacked by considerable numbers of Bf 109s
Explore History 1940 marks the 70th anniversary of a year when momentous events determined the eventual outcome of the Second WorldWar. Visitors to the new Explore History Centre can use an easy- to-search catalogue, interactivemultimedia displays, and the expertise of staff, to discover more about Harrold’s story, and those of so many others. The centre is a new public space where anyone can search the museum’s digitised collections of photographs, film, sound recordings, documents, art, ephemera, objects and books, to reveal the human stories behind the well-documented events of 1940 (as well as other times before and since) – as exemplified by the moving personal objects of Frederick Harrold, seen here.
TOP LEFT: Pilot Officer Frederick Cecil Harrold. (All images courtesy of the Imperial War Museum)
EXHIBITS FROM EXPLORE HISTORY 1940: 1: Pilot Officer Harrold's logbook. 2: Cigarette case belonging to Pilot Officer Harrold. 3: The telegram sent
to Pilot Officer
Harrold's father. 4: Perspex fragment fromHurricane P3417, coded SD-W. 5: Pilot Officer Frederick Cecil Harrold’s service dress jacket. 6: Airframe fragments fromHarrold's aircraft.
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