G.45 Gun Camera | Spitfire Mk.IX (BS400)  | Brouwershaven

Spitfire Mk.IX (BS400) of the No.453 (RAAF) squadron – took off at 09.30 hrs. from Hornchurch – was shot by Oberleutenant  Eugen Kotiza of the 6th fighter regiment whereupon the fighter crased 2 miles south of Brouwershaven on the 22nd of June 1943. 

The pilot (Flg.Off. Edward Noel Wallace Gray) of the fighter landed, thanks to his parachute, safely on the ground, though he was captured by the Germans. He was transferred to  "Stalag Luft III", during Word War II a German Prison of War camp, where captured Airforce-men were put. This was near Sagan, in the German county of Neder-Silezië, 100 miles southeast of Berlin.

This G.45 Gun Camera is in possession of the museum thanks to mr. Jan Reekers (Sergeant – Major of the former Zeeland Battalion). Acquaintances of Jan, who removed the camera from the wreckage and took it as a souvenir home, offered him this camera.

Explanation: Duivendijke is the name of a former community on Schouwen-Duiveland in the Dutch county Zeeland.