大象传媒

Whilst on evacuation, we had many adventures, this was just one of several involvements with crashed planes. We were swimming in the canal when the Spitfire tried to land in the field alongside us. It suddenly tipped up on its nose and then dropped back on its tail wheel. When we raced over, one thing struck me and still sticks in my mind, was how young the pilot was, he must have only been 18. His nose was bleeding but all he was concentrating on was getting all the ammunition out of the plane, as there was a possibility of it setting on fire.

So there I was, a nine year old lad, with a huge belt of ammunition over my shoulder, dragging it towards the canal! I was not on my own, there were five of us. The plane did not go on fire. The young pilot did a wonderful thing after we got dressed, he let each of us climb into the cockpit and have a few minutes sitting there with our imaginations. Do not forget that the Spitfire was the fastest plane in the world at that time. When the mechanics came they decided to take it away by road, they towed the plane across the field to the gste, and I was sitting in the cockpit, in my imagination. I must have shot down atleast twenty German planes in that five minutes!

They had to dismantle the wings and load it all on a low loader. We found out later that the aerodrome was about eight miles away at a village named Hardley.

'This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by 大象传媒 Radio Merseyside鈥檚 People鈥檚 War team on behalf of Ben Haligan the author and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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