Hawker Typhoon
RAF Serial: (likely) JP747
198 Squadron
Pilot: F/Sgt. A. B. Kirkwood (killed)
Date: 7th February 1944
Place: Quevauvillers, Poix, France

The first reported excavation in 2006 came from a French farmer who indicated the crash site of a British aircraft to an English recovery group. The farmer’s mother had witnessed the crash and made a note of the incident in her diary; the date was the 7th of February 1944, and a British aircraft had crashed, killing the pilot. She thought that the Germans had told her the pilot’s name had been something like ‘Rick’.

Flight Sergeant A. B. Kirkwood and Flying Officer J. A. McDonald, both from 198 Sqn, were brought down by anti-aircraft fire from Poix airfield in the Somme region of France on the 7th of February 1944. Both men were killed and are buried at Poix; however, it was still unknown which of the two pilots was flying the aircraft that crashed.

An excavation in February 2006 was conducted under the belief that substantial wreckage remained on the site, and in the hope that new evidence might be found to confirm the identity of the aircraft. In the event, little was found and the identity not proven, but it seems likely that a clue about the name ‘Rick’ would indicate Flight Sergeant Kirkwood’s aircraft, JP747.