Air crash 5 Dec 1941

On Friday 5 December 1941 Sgt. Otton Pudrycki 782879 aged 30 from No. 306 Squadron (Polish Air Force) at Speke flying a Spitfire IIa P7749 UZ-B (“The City of Bradford IV"), on a training flight, crashed on the playing fields and was killed.

REASON FOR LOSS:

On 5th December taking off at 09.30 hrs on a routine training exercise with others from the squadron, around the estuary of the Ribble River.

During the morning, the weather deteriorated with very low cloud. His aircraft was seen to be flying very low over the school at on St Pauls Avenue in Lytham before finally crashing at 10.30 hrs.

Notes: The court of enquiry following the crash decided that it was due to pilot error of judgement in that he should have returned to base earlier. Also that he had stalled the aircraft during a right hand climbing turn. This was disputed by members of the Squadron who held the pilot in very high esteem and that as an instructor he would not have allowed the aircraft to stall. Spitfire IIa P7749 had been built 8th December 1940 at the Castle Bromwich factory, fitted with Merlin XII, delivered to 603 Squadron on 11th December 1940 then to 111 squadron 24th May 1941, before finally going to 306 squadron on the 28th October 1941.

Many eye witnesses spoke about the efforts he made prior to crashing to avoid the school and are convinced that he saved many lives taking the actions he did that day. A plaque was unveiled in Hawkins library within the school on the 6th December 1991 in honour of the Polish fighter pilot.

Details of Polish squadrons in Blackpool.

Sgt. Otton Pudrycki was buried in Layton Cemetery, Blackpool, England. Grave BB443. Born on 3rd February 1911 in Łódź, Poland. 

There is a matchbox in the school archives containing a few rivets from the aircraft salvaged by one of the pupils. For a few years the remains of the Merlin engine were kept in the school's woodwork until that part of the school were rebuilt in the late 1950s.