On the south side of the road.

A square, black granite tablet set into the brickwork of the wall of the bridge. It is inscribed in English in incised and gold lettering. On the 9^th of January 1944, Lt Jay Frederick Simpson, a 27-year-old USAF test pilot, died near Saughall Massie, Wirral when his Republic Thunderbolt P47 plane crashed into fields.

Lt Simpson had taken off from US Burtonwood Airbase, Lancashire, and whilst returning from the flight, had reported that his plane was on fire. It circled over the West Kirby RAF Camp based at Greasby and then crashed in a field near the Arrowe Brook.

Pieces of the plane were unearthed in 1974, and are now in the museum of the War Plane Wreck Investigation Group at Fort Perch, New Brighton. Lt Simpson came from Gillett, Wisconsin where his parents owned the “Simpson Tavern”. The local legion post in Wisconsin is named Krause-Simpson in memory of the first servicemen of Gillett to be killed in WW1 and WW2.

On 21 March 2005, the new Saughall Massie Bypass was opened, and a commemorative plaque to Lt Simpson was unveiled on the bridge over Arrowe Brook.

Source of information: www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk, Imperial War Museum War Memorials Register, www.geocaching.com

Source of photos: commons.wikimedia.org, Imperial War Museum War Memorials Register

IN MEMORY OF

LT. J.F. SIMPSON

27 YRS. USAAF

WHO DIED WHEN HIS

P47 AIRCRAFT CRASHED

IN THIS FIELD 9.1.1944