A FLURRY of response to the German fighter-plane query, first raised by reader Eric Burke, has come winging in.

Eric, from Alder Street, Newton-le-Willows, retains only vague recollections of seeing a captured Messerschmitt displayed during the 1940s on Earlestown market square.

This unusual wartime exhibit is confirmed by another reader from Eric's patch who remembers it far more clearly - and by others who also recall such a plane visiting their various hometown districts.

Eric Brownbill of Castle Hill, Newton, confesses to a bit of souvenir-grabbing when he and his boyhood mates went to see the eye-popping German aircraft. "Earlestown schoolboys probably did more damage to that plane than the RAF," he writes.

Filling in some of the details that had been lost to Eric Burke, he explains: "The plane was an ME 109 fighter and was positioned behind canvas screens on a corner of the market square. From memory, it was exhibited during one of the many War Weapons Weeks, held to boost the National Savings Campaign."

Eric guesses that the year was either 1942 or 1943, and the object was to raise £5,000 to provide a Spitfire for the RAF. "It seems a ridiculously low sum now, with fighter planes costing in the millions." It was believed that the German plane force-landed in England. "There was little obvious damage," says Eric, "that is before we schoolboys got at it! To us, the war years were an exciting time and, of course, we collected souvenirs. Shrapnel from anti-aircraft shells, fins from incendiary bombs, bullet cases, cap badges and so on.

"Sometimes mobile AA guns were positioned on the market square and I recollect standing in the porch listening to shrapnel whirring down, and then searching for it in the street next morning."

It cost about a shilling (5p) then probably a kid's weekly spend, to view that trophy enemy plane. But there was a way round paying, hit upon by Eric and his enterprising schoolboy chums. "During chemistry lessons we would clean a copper halfpenny (of similar size to a shilling) in acid and then dip it in mercury. If careful, what looked like a silver shilling would be the result."

This could be swiftly dropped into the collection box, right under the eye of the airman attending to the exhibit. "Then, when he wasn't looking, out would come the pliers in an attempt to snip off a piece of the swastika from the tail or the cross from the wings."

D.H. Leyland of Dentons Green, also saw the German aircraft, on a car park at Prescot, when it was on a tour of the North West. It was silver with yellow markings and the propellor was bent, suggesting that it had been brought down or had force-landed.

What particularly took his eye was a cluster of small swastikas near the pilot's cockpit, possibly signifying 'kills' - the shooting down of enemy planes. Will Sharrock of Pendlebury Street, Clock Face, has wartime recollections of seeing a German plane on spare land off Bickerstaffe Street, St Helens (where Century House now stands). But this could have been a different Messerschmitt, because Will and his mates were disappointed to find that it had suffered so much severe damage that it was scarcely recognisable as an aircraft.

Another more spectacular wartime trophy he once saw was the bullet-proof Mercedes car of Hermann Goering, head of the German Luftwaffe. It went on display throughout Britain and Will happened to spot it while on holiday in Rhyl.

And he signs off with an intriguing yedscratter: "Which country, apart from Germany, displayed swastikas on their planes?" (I'd welcome any answer from our readers.)

Another keen customer of this page, wishing to be identified simply as George, also saw the captured plane on the Bickerstaffe Street site. It was there, he says, to attract donations of aluminium pots and pans which could be recycled into Spitfires.

George can also recall bomb raids on Parr area. "A stick of bombs was dropped at Allanson Street, and on the 'Bonk' behind the Railway Hotel," he says. Derbyshire Hill and Newton Road also suffered from enemy bombing.

"I believe that a couple of people were killed and there were a few casualties," adds George, who wonders if long-memoried Parrers could fill in extra details.

IF so, please drop me a line at the Star.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.