大象传媒

I was 15 years old in 1942 and had been residing at 'Holme Denel, New Thorpe, Robin Hood's Bay since August 1940 when my mother and I had received the news of my father's death at sea and we had moved from Middlesbrough to Thorpe to live in what had been my grandmother Collin son鈥檚 house on the steep road known as Sledgates which leads from Fylingthorpe to the moors and the Scarborough to Whitby highroad. It was a fine September morning with a clear sky and excellent visibility that Sunday morning when the residents of Fylingdales were able to watch the end of one of two German ME210鈥檚, which had flown over the North, sees a reconnaissance. That Sunday鈥檚 was waiting by the roadside for my school friend Ernest Brown to deliver our Sunday newspaper. I was watching Ernest walking up the hill from Fylingthorpe, and delivering papers to various houses on the way, when I heard what I took to be distant cannon fire out at sea and to the North of the Bay. I took little notice of this at first as it was quite usual for British aircraft to test their guns over the sea. By the time Ernest arrived at our gate the gunfire appeared to be much closer and we both looked out to sea for a while' but could see no sign of aircraft although visibility was good and we were standing about 300 ft above see level. Eventually we could make out a twin-engine plane coming in from the sea directly towards us at about 1,000 ft and with smoke trailing behind it. We could see no other plane in pursuit and as it drew nearer we could see that it was a fighter-bomber. As it neared the coast close to Bay town, two parachutes opened up below it but we were too busy trying to identify the plane to take much notice of where they landed. As the aircraft flew directly overhead we noticed that the two engines protruded at the front of its nose and we both thought that it was probably a British Beau fighter that had lost its battle with an enemy plane. As we had seen only two parachutes, and understood that a Beaufighter carried a crew of three, we supposed that the pilot may have stayed with his plane and hoped to make a forced landing on the moor top where a Wellington bomber once made a successful landing. The aircraft however continued to lose height and we saw it crash just below the crest of the hilltop behind Park Gate farm and possibly very near to Sunnyside farm.

Dennis Crosby

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.