Rare WW2 dogfight footage stolen from Bourne End letterbox

David Knibbs collects military antiques

Rare World War Two footage of a Spitfire dogfight that is believed to have been stolen could be returned with no questions asked, the owner has said.

The reel was delivered to a communal letterbox at Bourne End in Bedfordshire between about 12:00 BST and 14:00 BST on 4 October, Bedfordshire Police said.

Its owner David Knibbs said it was not there when he returned home.

He said the tape is "so rare that everyone is on alert" and "hopefully someone will see sense and return it".

The reel is in black box which is about half the size of an old VHS video and stamped AM for Air Ministry

The reel was in the camera attached to the machine gun on the aeroplane.

Mr Knibbs, who collects military antiques, said: "Every time the machine gun fired, the camera would have taken a picture, so it would have been like a flip book."

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He believes the images would have been used for training and very little of it now survives.

As a result, he believes the footage could be valuable for use in documentaries.

This image shows one of the first Spitfires off the production line, flown by Sqn Ldr Henry Iliffe Cozens, the Commanding Officer of No. 19 Squadron in K 9795

The Spifire crashed in Kent and Mr Knibbs bought the reel from a car boot sale in Rochester about seven years ago.

However, he was unable to get into its case.

During lockdown, he decided to do something about extracting the reel, liaising with Cranfield University.

After they were unable to help, he had arranged to send it to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford as "they have the equipment to decipher it".

Mr Knibbs said the police had suggested an "amnesty where it can be put back in my letter box or dropped at a police station".

He said publicity about the theft meant "it is absolutely useless to anyone now".

Bedfordshire Police said it was appealing for witnesses.