大象传媒

BOXING DAY ANGELS
Englishman Bill Duncanson came to live and work in Perth, Western Australia. At the time he arrived, a newspaper printed a story the fascinated him. An Australian pilot had crashed a RAF bomber at Gomersal, near Leeds in England, on Boxing Day in 1943. "I was there," he said to himself mentally picturing four boys at play and the flames of a crashing plane. He phoned the pilot but he was away on a visit to Europe. The year was 1986.
Bill Duncanson lost the newspaper, then subsequently forgot the name of the pilot who had crashed. But over the years his desire to meet the man resurfaced. He began to search Perth for him.
One day he came face to face with a picture of the person he now called his hero. The Canning Times of July 2002 featured the Australian RAF Pathfinder pilot he wanted and there was a write-up about him. Bill Duncanson's attention was sparked.
Arrangements with the pilot's wife enabled Bill's tall lean figure to find their home and to stand at the pilot's front door and declare, "I am Bill Duncanson. I saw your plane on fire and then you crashed. It was Boxing Day 1943." Tom, the pilot, gasped and his thoughts raced. Had he really survived such a horrific crash in World War II?
Tom recalled his priority training as a RAF pilot in "Pathfinders". Enemy bombs had been devastating England. Enemy submarines had been decimating supply shipping to Britain. How had Britain survived? Pathfinders had been specially trained to lead the bomber attacks to destroy Hitler's manufacturing of war machines in Europe. What more could Tom say?
Bill Duncanson went on, "We were four boys playing on a hillside near the Saville Arms pub in Yorkshire. You flew above us and your crash really shook us up. It greatly affected all our lives."
Tom was shocked. He recalled the pub. It had been in his flight path as he headed his stricken Halifax Bomber in for an emergency landing that would avoid houses. Tom had not known then of four little boys staring up at him. With a crew of eight in his Halifax, he had been synchronising their evasion tactics against enemy fighter aircraft. Many enemy guns and aircraft would be awaiting them in forthcoming flights over Europe.
In the midst of a steep dive in his Halifax over Yorkshire, Tom had seen one of his plane's motors explode and catch fire. The crew had to parachute out, and Tom had the job of landing the blazing plane so that it avoided houses.
Bill Duncanson was gripped as he heard the details and he explained, "The crash frightened we four boys. We saw the smoke and fire of your plane among the houses. One boy got us all to kneel while he prayed for the pilot. We were so shaken up, what else could we do? Later we looked through the windows of the Saville Arms and we actually saw the Police bring you into the pub. You were like a person from another world to us."
Tom shared how the event had a big impact on his own life. But flying in wartime required crews to adjust quickly to traumatic events. Tom had discovered his letters home to Perth had been preserved and after the crash he had mentioned Boxing Day but had only said; "The angels have been looking after me." Had Bill Duncanson and tiny his mates been Tom's Boxing Day Angels? Tom had to wait sixty years to discover those four little boys on that Yorkshire hillside had actually prayed for him.
Tom went on to fly 62 attacks into Europe and to have many reasons to wonder at his survival. His books "A Pathfinders story", "A Sequel" and a CD tell the fuller story.

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