WW2; my part in our victory......

6^th April 1945. We were playing in the street with some mates when two        Wellington bomber passed almost overhead. My brother looked up just at the moment they collided. Moments later there was the sound of an enormous explosion. There was nothing recognisable as an aircraft. There was only an aluminium shower floating slowly to earth.

 

There was one parachute. Then the burning fuel from the plane caught up with it, there was a brief flare as it burnt up almost immediately and the airman fell free-fall about 1000 feet.

 

We were off a full tilt, running or on our bikes. But the first person on the scene was our school-friend Janet who lived on the opposite side of the road from the impact.

 

The main wreckage had fallen in a field just a few yards from our country railway station. Some debris had on  the line, closing it for quite a time, but by some miracle left the station building and waiting room untouched.

 

Janet stumbled across a flying-boot and then wished she hadn’t. It contained a foot!

 

By the time we arrived, the firemen were already damping down the wreckage and invited us to go away (or words to that effect). Callous little devils that we were, we gave no thought to the sudden deaths of perhaps eight or ten young men.

 

We were after loot, especially Perspex from the plane’s windows which we would carve into all manner of things, like rings and knuckle-dusters.

 

Epilogue. Searching for hard facts to support 70-year-old memories, I am indebted to David King, Chairman of the Aircrew Remembrance Society for the following information:

 

 

‘The Wellington Collision you witnessed accrued on the 6^th April 1945, both aircraft from 26 O.T.U. Little Horwood, Wellingtons, serial No. HE928, flown by F/Lt D L Wise, and serial No.LN540 flown by F/Of M L Hore’. He provide a map showing the point of impact together with a photo of one of the engines, which has been donated to Bletchley Park.