Description

Summary: digital image, scan of black and white photograph of Robert MacWhirter's grandmother outside her cottage at Iley Point. Robert married Dorothy Vekins whose father Dan was the last custodian of Hurst Castle.

Identification note: Robert MacWhirter was a member of the Fleet Air Arm in World War II and an expert pilot of the amphibious biplane, the Walrus, and the Spitfire. For his outstanding skill and courage he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Whilst he was based at Lee-on-Solent he took the opportunity of regularly flying low over Keyhaven to drop off his parcel of washing for his mother to launder. If the parcel missed the garden she would row out to sea to collect it. On the afternoon of Tuesday 8 November 1938, instead of releasing his laundry, four smoke bombs were dropped narrowly missing two workmen erecting a fence at Salt Grass for the owner Mr Wilkinson. One bomb fell on the front lawn of Keyhaven house, the home of Mrs Hunt, two at Salt Grass and one in the garden of Salt Grass Cottage, the weekend home of Air Marshall Portal! Fortunately the safety-pins were still in the bombs and later in the day an RAF lorry was sent to collect the missiles. The incident was reported in five national newspapers the next day but the pilot, Robert MacWhirter, was not identified and it is not known whether he was ever found out or disciplined.