his father, J. W. Wood Sr., in Tacoma. "The navy plane was attached to bombing squadron 3 of the navy aircraft carrier Saratoga." Curtiss SBC-3 Helldiver, BuNo 0541, crashed this date; SOC on 30 September 1939. 15 August Thirteen Junkers Ju 87 B-1s of 1 Gruppe, 76 Sturmkampfgeschwader, commanded by Captain Walter Sigel, crash during an 0600 hrs. demonstration on training area Neuhammer (now Świętoszów, Poland). All 26 crew members were killed. The planes dived through cloud, expecting to release their practice bombs and pull out of the dive once below the cloud ceiling, unaware that on that particular day the ceiling was too low and unexpected ground mist formed, leaving them no time to pull out of the dive. 1 September Second prototype Saro S.36 Lerwick twin-engine flying boat, L7249, sinks at pierside mooring at Felixstowe, Suffolk, when, after flight test at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment (MAEE), a hatch is left improperly secured; attempt by crew to save it fails as it had already shipped too much water – salvaged for static tests only. 4 September Supermarine Type 300, the prototype Spitfire to F.37/34, K5054, is wrecked when Flt. Lt. "Spinner" White misjudges his landing approach at Farnborough, bouncing several times before fighter noses over onto its back. Pilot dies in hospital four days later. Spitfire is not repaired. 12 September Polish LWS-3 Mewa, (reported in some sources as evacuated to Bulgaria at outbreak of war), crashed this date during evening landing near Przemyśl. 16 September (some sources cite 17 September) Soviet ace (18 victories) of the Spanish Civil War, Sergey Gritsevets, assigned to act as an adviser in a fighter brigade at Orsha for the invasion of Poland on 17 September, is killed this date in a landing accident. At 1907 hrs., three Polikarpov I-16s took off for Bolbasovo. When they landed at 1950 hrs., Gritsevets was killed when Major Petr I. Khara’s (also a veteran from Spain) aircraft stalled whilst landing and crashing into Gritsevets, who was taxiing on the airfield at Bolbasovo. Khara survived the crash. 17 September Polish LWS-3 Mewa destroyed near Stanisławów in SE Poland (now in Ukraine) due to fuel shortage. 25 September Blackburn B-24 Skua crewed by Lt. Bruce Straton McEwan, RN, and Petty Officer B. M. Seymour of No. 803 Squadron, launched from , becomes the first British fighter to down a German aircraft in World War II when they