Hawker Typhoon MN954

In 2019 I visited Holland to present the family of William Hurrell, RAF Typhoon Pilot, with a replica Typhoon side door; I had no idea that my time there would lead to such significant support for the rebuild of JP843.

Presenting the surviving family of William Hurrell with a replica Typhoon side panel.

My visit was hosted by my friend Arjan Wemmers, who has sacrificed a great deal of time to help me with my travels in Europe. He, his family, and his friends have all been amazing in supporting me with my goals for Typhoon Legacy; without them we would certainly not be where we are today.

Myself with Arjan, his wife, and his Mother.

During my 2019 visit, Arjan introduced me to some members of the local government in Alblasserdam with whom he had been working to seek the recovery of Hawker Typhoon MN954 (PR-U), another 609 Squadron Typhoon that had been lost, this time on the 28th of September 1944. The Belgian pilot of MN954, F/L Jean Noel Vandaele baled out of the aircraft at a very low level and sadly succumbed to his injuries on the ground.

Meeting with a representative from the mayor’s office at the crash site. You can see the change in the canal bank directly behind me, this is the impact site for MN954.

Arjan had located the crash site of MN954 in 2017, and had been researching and documenting the life and the story of F/L Vandaele for some time. In working with the municipal government and the Dutch Air Force, he hoped that arrangements could be made to recover what remained of the aircraft.

Over the next few years Arjan’s work, and effort continued. Despite the difficulties involved with such a massive undertaking, the effort put in began to produce results. A working group was put together that featured many key individuals from the local government and the Air Force. And by early 2024 arrangements had been made for the combined effort of the RNLAF and the Municipality of Alblasserdam to recover the remains of Hawker Typhoon MN954.

Work moved very quickly from this point, as the Air Force only had certain windows to complete these jobs. February was the month in which the recovery had to take place.

As many project followers recall, I returned to Holland to witness this historic recovery, once again hosted and supported by Arjan and his wonderful family!

The process used to recover the aircraft was amazing. Of utmost importance with this work is the preservation of the environment around the crash site. Significant effort is required to build roadways into the area for equipment and prevent the destruction of the forest floor. Tuytel Group was brought in to create a natural path over the soft bog area. This process was very impressive; using local forest debris and steel plates, a roadway was created which allowed heavy machinery to drive without impact on the bog below. I recall standing beside the road as loaded equipment drove past; the soft wet ground shook under my feet, but the road and its base was unscathed!

The roadway built through the forest leading to the crash site.

The Air Force set in a wall around the area penetrating deep into the earth, this wall system was sealed and continuously pumped out to keep the water out of the recovery area. Once dry, the removal of soil could begin. Slowly and carefully the soil was removed from the area and loaded into containers for sorting and disposal. This work was one offsite at the nearby Tuytel site to prevent any potential environmental hazards from leaching into the ground. Every container of earth and debris was loaded and hauled to the remote sorting facility. Once at this site, each container was unloaded into a sorting system that washed the dirt away and screened out artifacts as small as 8mm! Care was taken by the Air Force to inspect and clean every piece that was recovered to ensure safety and remove any potential complete or partial remains of armament.

This image shows the reinforcing that was put into the ground to prevent collapse. There were also several pumps operating to keep water from getting in. Photo courtesy of the RNLAF Recovery Team.

All fill removed from the site was loaded into containers for sorting and cleaning at the remote facility. Photo courtesy of the RNLAF Recovery Team.

Earth from the crash site being moved through conveyors and screens to ensure every part is found. Photo courtesy of the RNLAF Salvage Team.

Once the parts have been separated from the soil, everything was cleaned. Photo courtesy of the RNLAF Salvage Team.

Having returned to Canada from this trip, I continued work on fitting skins to the monocoque section of JP843. While I worked on this, the Dutch Air Force continued to clean and sort the surviving parts of MN954. Preliminary discussions had been made regarding the importance of each piece of recovered Typhoon, and the leadership of both Air Force and Municipality were keen to support the preservation of everything possible.

There were a few main items that most agreed would need to stay in Alblasserdam to help remember the sacrifice of F/L Vandaele. Primarily these included personal items recovered, cockpit and control components that Jean Noel would have been in contact with, and of course, the engine.

The pilots seat is seen here still attached to the rear armor and parts of the forward monocoque section (fuselage).

I spoke with the authorities regarding the Sabre, and while I completely agreed that the engine would be best suited as a memorial, I suggested that during the display preparations, it be stripped of useful internal components. To my surprise, this thought was embraced and supported by all!

The Sabre had been cleaned with a pressure washer, and thankfully Arjan and his friend Jaap were able to visit the site and spray a preservative on it to help prevent rust. Jaap was introduced to me by Arjan, and has become one of my good friends in Holland. He is also a big supporter of our work on JP843, and an excellent and experienced mechanic. He was asked if he would be interested and willing to take the Sabre and disassemble it to recover the components not needed for display, and he was excited to do so.

Japp is seen here working on the Sabre in his Lab! Photo courtesy of Arjan Wemmers.

Diligently working away on the Sabre, building special tooling and taking care to not cause damage, Jaap has managed to get a significant amount of the monster apart.

Japp is seen here after the successful removal of the first cylinder block assembly. Photo courtesy of Arjan Wemmers.

During late fall of this year, Arjan advised me that December 13th had been set to complete the sorting of all recovered parts from MN954. I asked Arjan if it would be beneficial to have me help identify parts for them, and he was supportive of the idea. Off again to Holland for me.

This was a quicker trip than most, and timings were tight for each day on the ground. With the help of Robert (Dutch Air Force and member of the recovery working group), all of my passes and paperwork were set up before I arrived. Arjan picked me up from the airport, and we went straight to Gilze- Rijen Air Base (out of interest, this was a German night fighter base during the war).

The Air Force had done work in organising what was left and sorting special parts for the municipality of Alblasserdam and the 609 Squadron Association. There was still much to do, and Arjan and I set to planning on how best to prepare the wreckage for the team arriving on the 13th. Arjan had the fantastic idea of laying out the components in the shape of the aircraft, so all members could easily see the larger picture of what these smaller fragments were. There were big piles to sort through, and hundred of parts needing identification, so we needed to use time wisely.

Image courtesy of Arjan Wemmers.

Slowly but surely the surviving parts were starting to take the shape of the structure they were once part. Arjan collected components from the containers, and I identified them and placed them where they should be. The end result was that when the working group arrived on the 13th, there was an orderly and identifiable collection of what they had all worked so hard to recover.

Myself placing parts. Photo courtesy of Arjan Wemmers.

Meeting with the working group on the 13th was wonderful, it was a reunion of friends who had all worked to see the recovery take place, and for me, a reunion of the many great people I had met during my trips to Holland. Arriving at the hangar where the parts were stored, Arjan’s layout plan was met with great enthusiasm.

While we all took a short period of time to look at the parts before us, time was still limited to meet the task for the day, so work had to begin. With an understanding of what the parts were and what their importance would be to different parties/organisations, the working group was in a good position to start to arrange all the parts into individual collections.

As a collective, the group went through the items and assigned them, in some cases, like with the 609 Squadron Association collection, parts were transferred to Typhoon Legacy’s collection to support reverse engineering efforts. During the sorting there were also several parts found and identified that were of key interest for the cockpit reconstruction and would serve as a poignant part of the collection for the Alblasserdam collection and its memorial work for Jean Noel.

Many careful discussions were had in determining the best use for each part.

 As other structural parts made there way into the collection intended to come to Typhoon Legacy, a discussion took place that was very supportive of the work Typhoon Legacy is doing to preserve the Typhoon. The importance of our ability to identify and record the technical information from these parts was understood. Our ability to extract this data and preserve it was identified as a key point in deciding that most of these parts would be best served by loaning them to Typhoon Legacy.

With the identification and collection of data being the first step, all involved also wanted to ensure the information could be used by as many interested parties as possible. To do this, and agreement was made that the 609 Squadron Association would be given the information collected and provide this to other interested parties when requested, thus ensuring the availability of information for years to come.

Having now created a path forward for artifact preservation, the sorting process began to speed up. By late afternoon the entire collection had been sorted and put into their respective crates. I am very happy to report that the parts that are to be loaned to Typhoon Legacy are amazing, and will contain details that we’ve not been able to find anywhere else!

From left to right; Jaap, Martin, Robert, Arjan, Koen, Harold, Jocelyn, myself, and Jaap. After completion of the sorting, the work group and I took this image in front of the crate of parts from MN954 that will be loaned to Typhoon Legacy (currently pending Airforce release).

At the time of writing this post, the parts remain in Holland awaiting the final release approval and loan paperwork from the Air Force. It is a great honor that the Dutch Airforce is extending the courtesy of loaning these parts to Typhoon Legacy, we are very fortunate to have had their trust placed in our abilities.  

We hope that within several months, our crate of parts will arrive. A detailed update will be provided at that time.

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