大象传媒

I was born in 1939, and lived throughout WW2 at Cleethorpes with my parents and younger sister. My father was away, serving in the Royal Navy, so my grandma shared the family home with us.

I have no definite evidence of when this recollection of the war occurred but it must have been towards the end of the conflict, perhaps about 1944 or 1945.

My mother and grandma had taken us two kids for a walk along a part of the Cleethorpes promenade that was not blockaded as part of the defence against invasion. During our walk, we suddenly became aware of a British aircraft struggling to stay airborne some distance away along the coast. The bomber was over the sea, climbing and then dropping, climbing and dropping again. Even at our distance we could hear the engines whining as they were given full throttle in attempts to prevent it ditching. To my young mind the aircraft seemed to struggle in this manner for an eternity though I suppose in reality it all took place in the space of a few moments. Finally, the plane crashed into the sea and the engine noise stopped. My young mind says there were no other civilian witnesses to the crash but perhaps in reality there was a crowd standing on the beach watching the events unfurl.

My mother and grandma decided we must do our patriotic duty and proceed to the crash site to assist the airmen and do whatever was necessary. My legs suddenly pleaded that the plane was miles away but we were marched southwards along the coast road towards the Humberston area.

The tide was out, and at Cleethorpes that means a one hundred miles trek if you wish to get your toes wet, but Mother and Grandmother kept us going as we walked out towards the wreck site.

The Home Guard had arrived before us and had helped the three or four aircrew escape from the plane and the soldiers were leading the airmen back up the beach by the time we met them. My mother enquired if everyone was all right and one of the flight crew told her, 鈥淵es everything鈥檚 alright, just a few cuts and bruises,鈥� and, without stopping, they continued marching past us.

But to my young mind everything was not right, in fact, something was most definitely wrong, most peculiar and most unmilitary, because the airmen were dressed strangely. We had all seen pictures of airmen on the Pathe News at the cinema and I knew exactly what airmen wore; they wore trousers, battledress jackets, white silk scarves, and leather flying helmets. But instead of these flyers wearing trousers they had sweaters tied around their waists 鈥� with the body of the sweater at the front and the arms knotted behind. As they trouped past, each of the airmen was displaying his bottom! Wow! This was a major discovery to my young mind. Who would have guessed that when you fly a plane you don鈥檛 wear trousers? Amazing!

Our family group turned around and walked back up the beach in the wake of the fast marching men. Having reached the dry sand areas, Mother decided we could not walk back along the beach to Cleethorpes because the tide was coming in and we would be cut off before we reached the promenade; instead we would walk directly across the sand dunes to the main road where we ought to be able to catch a bus.

We were just approaching the first of the sand dunes when a soldier appeared from nowhere and, pointing a rifle at us, demanded, 鈥淗alt. Who goes there?鈥� In retrospect he had probably dreamed of one day challenging someone with the well-worn warning. My mother explained to him that we were not foreign spies or agents but were catching a bus! (Eat your heart out Captain Mainwaring.). She told him we had seen the aeroplane crash, and had attempted a mission of mercy sort of thing, we had found ourselves cut off by the flooding tide so intended catching a bus home

The soldier told us we were lucky that he was on duty because we had been about to walk across a minefield! We would need to follow him and we must walk exactly where he walked; did we understand? Mother said we did and formed us up in a single file, placing me immediately in front of her so that she could keep her beady eye on me. So, here we were in a single file setting out on another wonderful boyhood adventure; the soldier; me; Mother; sister; and finally Grandma bringing up the rear.

The soldier鈥檚 big hobnailed boots left huge imprints in the dry sand making it very easy to see where I had to tread in order to walk exactly where he had walked. But here I had a slight problem in that his strides were twice the length of my young normal ones but the answer was easy, I simply took huge exaggerated strides behind him.

Suddenly, I was hit on the head by a missile! Had I been shot? Were the Germans bombing us again? The answer came immediately; wars are cruel and make people do cruel things. My mother shouted at me, 鈥淪top messing about! Walk properly or you鈥檒l get a clip around the other ear as well.鈥�

Wars are cruel - and minefields can hurt your ears!

I don鈥檛 remember whether the bus ever arrived; it seems that for me that segment of the war ended when I received the clout around the ear; perhaps it caused amnesia!

To this day I have no idea as to the date of the incident, the type of aircraft involved, whether anyone was killed, exactly where we were in relation to the main Cleethorpes promenade, how the airmen had come to lose their trousers, how large the minefield was 鈥� or even if it actually existed or not.

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