Spitfire of missing hero pilot from Kent found on Dutch coast
10:38, 12 November 2020
updated: 10:40, 12 November 2020
The wreckage of a Second World War plane found on a Dutch beach has been traced back to a hero from Kent who went missing in action.
A Spitfire V, which disappeared 20 miles of the Netherlands coast in February, 1944, while escorting US bombers to an Nazi air base, was found last month in Nordzee, near Rotterdam, by a lifeguard.
It is believed the aircraft was flown by pilot Sydney Cheeseman, whose family lived on Sheppey.
The 21-year-old had been training in Canada before flying with 501 Squadron, then based at RAF Hawkinge, near Folkestone, during the war.
Sydney’s plane span out of control, forcing him to eject.
It happened after he dropped his long-range fuel tanks off the Dutch coast, a fellow pilot said.
Sydney was feared dead but his body was never found.
'He was relieved the plane was found and has been told everything about it.'
He left behind parents George and Jessie, who lived in Minster, and brother John who recently moved from the island into Barham House Nursing Home in Canterbury.
John, 88, was relieved to get some closure on the mysterious disappearance of his brother.
Riannon Rye, an administrator at the care home, added: “John was told he had gone missing during the war, but he was quite young at the time, about eight or nine. He was relieved the plane was found and has been told everything about it.
“He’s loved knowing people have been honouring his brother at the memorials.”
Long-term friends of John and the Cheeseman family, Neil and Beryl Hancock, who live in Minster, were delighted to hear the news about Sydney, who was living in Orpington at the time of his death.
Neil, 78, said: “My in-laws were very good friends with his parents and my wife, my sister and I have stayed in touch with John ever since it happened.
“We visit him regularly and spoke to him about it the other week.
“It was quite upsetting but he was relieved to hear the story. I think John thought it was almost a closed book.
“John was only young but would tell us how we would ride Sydney’s bike with him. He’s in good spirits and I think it’s given him a bit of a lift.”
The wreckage of the plane - which was later identified as a fuel tank - is now in storage at the Wings to Victory museum in Netherlands as it awaits a home as part of an exhibition.
Sydney Cheeseman is remembered at the Runnymede Air Force Memorial in Surrey where there is an inscription in his honour.
