More than 60 years after an aerial duel with the Fleet Air Arm, a Luftwaffe pilot returned to the crash site in Norway to recall an incident which highlighted the chivalry of the air war.

At the height of the Nazi assault on Norway in 1940, Horst Schopis’ Heinkel He111 bomber engaged in a tussle with a FAA Blackburn Skua piloted by Royal Marine Capt R.T. Partridge.

The British aircraft had been on routine patrol on April 27, and attacked the lone Heinkel.

In the ensuing battle near the village of Grotli, the opponents scored telling hits on each other – hits serious enough to force both pilots to make an emergency landing, writes David Morris, curator of aircraft at the FAA Museum.

The remains of the Skua were recovered by a Royal Navy diving team lead by Lt Andrew Linsley in 1974, and are on display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton.

Now, 64 years after the crash, Herr Schopis returned to Grotli to meet the diving team who recovered the wreck of the Skua, and the son of his former foe – Capt Partridge died in 1990

Capt Partridge had managed to put his aircraft down on a frozen lake on the northern side of Vassvendegge Mountain after sustaining damage, then with his observer Lt R. Bostock RN, he burnt the crippled Skua using his signal pistol, thereby preventing the plane from falling into enemy hands.

Meanwhile, on the south side of the mountain, Schopis managed to put down his damaged bomber at another frozen stretch of water, Lake Heillistug.

Both aircrews set out to find shelter and food on the bleak mountainside, and towards nightfall the Germans found a small hut on the lower slopes.

They were more than a little surprised to enter and find their erstwhile enemies, the Fleet Air Arm aircrew, rather than the Norwegian locals they expected.

Mr Morris says what happened next was a fine act of chivalry.

“Capt Partridge offered his hand in friendship and Horst respected the gesture,” he said.

“With limited communication, both agreed that their battle had been in the air and that survival rather than further conflict should be the common aim.

“That night they shared coffee and muesli found in the hut and handed themselves in to the Norwegian authorities the next day.”

As that part of Norway was not yet in German hands, Herr Schopis became a PoW, while Capt Partridge and Lt Bostock were returned to the UK with help from the Norwegian resistance.

Recent close examination of the remains of the aircraft at Yeovilton revealed a bullet from the Heinkel had pierced the Skua’s main oil pipe, and a photo of the damage was presented to Herr Schopis in Norway – the former pilot also celebrated his 92nd birthday while in Scandinavia.

Photographs of the wreckage were presented to Herr Schopis by Mr Morris in Grotli this year when the divers, Capt Partridge’s son Simon and locals reunited to recall the events of 1940 in an event organised by Andrew Linsley and several Norwegians.

Herr Schopis was also able to inspect some of the wreckage of his own aircraft.

“Horst was astonished and pleased to finally know after all these years how he had shot the Skua down,” said Mr Morris.

The Blackburn Skua was the first British aircraft specifically designed for dive-bombing, but it could also serve as a fighter.

The two-seater aircraft, which could be launched and recovered by aircraft carriers, entered service with the Fleet Air Arm in November 1938, when 800 Naval Air Squadron converted to the Skua while embarked in HMS Ark Royal.

They were replaced by Fulmars and Sea Hurricanes in 1941, having claimed the first enemy aircraft downed by the FAA in World War II (a Dornier flying boat off Norway in September 1939), and in the month Partridge’s Skua was shot down, similar planes from 800 and 803 NAS dive-bombed and sank the cruiser Konigsberg in Bergen Fjord in Norway.