Memory Lane
Flight Lieutenant Sandy Gunn was shot down in Norway
Remake Scrapstore is currently closed due to the pandemic but the Crieff- based national reuse organisation is still providing fun projects for a range of ages and abilities.
Using donated craft and textile materials volunteers have been making up Wellbeing Craft Kit Bags for Strath residents.
The bags have been distributed through community groups, local charities, the region’s health and social care partnership, care home activity leaders and community link workers.
There are three kits in the craft bags with all the items needed to get crafty.
Remake’s Fiona Gilbert explained to the Herald: “For younger children the kits will need some family support.
“There are three kits in this craft bag – a paper ball, felt bookmark with tassel and a simple embroidery project
“If you’re a bit rusty on hand sewing, there’s also a handy stitch guide to help.”
The project is funded by Perth and Kinross Local Action Partnership.
Fiona continued: “Remake would like to give huge thanks to Christine Forsyth and the 17 local sewing volunteers who have been making the tote bags from reusable materials.”
Residents at Crieff’s Duchlage Court sheltered housing complex have been among those getting creative with the contents of the bags.
Housing support officer, Helen McLean, said: “I was really grateful to Remake for handing the bags in. Our residents have enjoyed doing the activities.”
Remake, based on Muthill Road, has been chosen for the current round of the Crieff Co-op Local Community Fund.
This means shoppers can choose Remake as a local cause to support each time they use their Co- op membership card.
Fiona added: “Every little helps and goes towards supporting the Crieff Community Tool Library so tools and equipment can be more affordable to more people in our area.”
Sandy Gunn from Auchterarder became a top-notch elite Spitfire pilot who flew on highly dangerous missions, including photographing the German pocket battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord.
He took part in the ‘Great Escape’ and was subsequently cruelly murdered on the orders of Adolf Hitler.
Work is now under way to repair his Spitfire and make it into a living relic to remember the bravery of RAF pilots and crew.
During its 22-week operational life, Sandy’s final Spitfire aircraft, AA810, had at least seven pilots, including the Welsh champion jockey and 1940 Grand National winner Mervyn Anthony Jones, and the Indian-born English motor racing star, Alfred Fane Peers Agabeg.
Jones and Agabeg both lost their lives flying missions for the RAF’s Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU).
The Operation Record Book for 1 PRU shows that Spitfire AA810 flew for a total 49 hours and 47 minutes.
The PRU employed modified supermarine Spitfires which were unarmed, stripped of armour plating, armoured windscreens, and even their radio. They were, however, fitted with additional fuel tanks giving them four times the range of a conventional Spitfire.
Some PRU Spitfires – which were meant to fly just under cloud cover, at sunset and sunrise, when the clouds took on a pinkish hue – were painted pink, rendering them almost invisible. These got the nickname ‘Pink Spitfires’.
On average, each PRU Spitfire had a life expectancy of just 14 weeks.
When Spitfire AA810 crashed in Norway, it was piloted for the PRU by Gunn.
Gunn was born on September 27, 1919 at ‘Deansland’, Auchterarder, to well-loved surgeon James Turner Gunn,
MB, ChB, FRCS and Adelaide Lucy Frances Gunn.
He was schooled at Cargilfield School and Fettes College
(both in Edinburgh) before undertaking an engineering apprenticeship at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Govan.
He then went on to Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge to study mechanical sciences.
Gunn enlisted in the RAF on February 22, 1940 and commenced active service on June 22, 1940 as an aircrew candidate, airman second class.
On January 18, 1941, he received his pilot’s brevet - an honorary high rank that rewards merit or gallantry, but without authority - and was promoted to sergeant.
He was commissioned as a pilot officer on January 25, 1941 and then promoted to flying officer exactly a year later.
Much of Gunn’s flying involved dangerous long-range PRU missions photographing German naval units along the Norwegian coast and in the North Atlantic.
During one of these missions, he crashed in the North Atlantic after running out of fuel.
Luckily, he was rescued and was soon back in the air.
At 8.07am on March 5, 1942, Spitfire AA810 piloted by Gunn took off from RAF Wick.
It flew 580 miles across the North Sea to Fættenfjord in the north of Norway.
Gunn’s mission was to photograph the German battleship Tirpitz which was sheltering in the Trondheim Fjord.
This was the 113th PRU mission to try to monitor the German battleship and unfortunately for Gunn, the first to be successfully intercepted by the Luftwaffe.
AA810 was shot down by a pair of Messerschmitt Bf109s undertaking air protection over the fjord.
Sandy was unaware that the
Germans had installed a new listening post at Kristiansund, to the south east of the Trondheim Fjord, and Luftwaffe pilots
Dieter Gerhardt and Heinz Knoke had been scrambled from Lade Airfield to wait high over Trondheim to intercept Gunn’s Spitfire.
Gunn was seen to be circling with an engine issue, trying to decide whether to risk returning home over the North Sea or head for neutral Sweden.
At that point, Heinz attacked, hitting the oil cooler on Gunn’s AA810.
Dieter then brought his Messerschmitt into attack, peppering the Spitfire with hundreds of rounds.
One of the cannon rounds hit Sandy’s starboard wing tank, setting it on fire.
With this level of damage Gunn had no choice but to bail out. He did so moments before his Spitfire crashed.
Suffering facial injuries and other burns and unable to ski, Gunn determined that undertaking the 110-mile hike the Swedish border was not an option.
He surrendered and became prisoner of war.
He was taken to Surnadal village, over the river below the
With this level of damage Gunn had no choice but to bail out
Troll Mountains’.
The village was so remote it would also be his place of rest that evening as there was no way
get him to Trondheim that same day.
A truck arrived the next morning and he was taken to Trondheim where he was taken
train to Oslo. From there he would have been flown to Dulag Luft, (Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe, Transit Camp of the Airforce) for interrogation.
The German military believed Gunn had flown from a secret RAF airfield in northern Norway and interrogated him for some three weeks before sending him to Stalag Luft 3, a Luftwafferun PoW camp in Poland, immortalised by two break-outs: October 1943 – the subject of the book and subsequent film by Eric Williams, The Wooden Horse; and March 1944 – an escape which became known as the ‘Great Escape’.
Gunn was one of the 76 ‘Great Escapees’ and one of the 73 recaptured. Stalag Luft 3 also housed local former PoW’s Ernie Holmes, DFC, who has just celebrated his 100th birthday in Perth and Bill Reid, VC, who is buried at Crieff Cemetery.
So furious was Adolf Hitler over the escape, he ordered the execution of a majority of the escapees.
Gunn was murdered on April 6, 1944, by members of the Gestapo along with 49 other RAF personnel, including 11 Spitfire pilots.
Flight Lieutenant Alastair Donald MacIntosh ‘Sandy’ Gunn (60340) was just 24 years of age.
He was buried at the time in Sagan. Subsequently, his ashes were re-interred in the Old Garrison Cemetery, Poznan.
Gunn was twice ‘mentioned in Despatches’: firstly on June 5, 1942 for service as pilot officer; and later for conspicuous gallantry as a prisoner of war.
In 2018, Gunn’s Spitfire, AA810, was discovered embedded in a mountainside peat bog in Norway – at a remote area near Surnadal.
After careful excavation and meticulous on-site recording, its component pieces were packed into boxes and driven back to the UK.
The plane had been hit by over 200 machine-gun bullets and some 20 rounds of cannon fire.
Before it hit the ground at an angle of about 20 degrees, its engine had stopped and its starboard side, nose, and cockpit were all ablaze.
Unearthing, salvaging, and rebuilding the Spitfire is costing at least £2.5 million.
It is hoped that after restoration, the Spitfire will fly again as a memorial to the 305 known PRU pilots.
As a memorial gesture, inside the top cowling of AA810 will be the names of all the pilots - 77 who were killed, 19 made PoWs and 74 who were detailed as missing in action. It is hoped to have AA810 back in the air in 2023/24.
The restoration effort can be supported by the public by visiting an associated website and the PRU pilots can be honoured by adopting a name on the ‘For Those Who Served’ page.
I personally hope one day to see Sandy Gunn’s Spitfire flying over Auchterarder.
What a tribute that would be to him.
Follow the restorers on Facebook: Spitfire AA810 – Restoring Sandy’s Spitfire @ SpitfireAA810 or visit the website at www.spitfireaa810.co.uk for further information or to support the restoration efforts.
The Sandy Gunn Aerospace Careers Programme (ACP), is a venture dedicated to inspiring and assisting 15–18 year olds into engineering and aviation.