大象传媒

I was in 82 Squadron at Bodney, a satellite airfield of R.A.F. Watton, Norfolk. The time, was the winter of 1940 sometime after the Battle and Occupation of France. The Blenheim Squadron of No. 2 Group had had a rough time on daylight operations during the German Blitzkrieg and we in 82 were on night-time intruder operation and had the occasional 鈥淪tand-Down鈥�. On these occasions the troops made for Norwich in whatever transport was available, knowing they had to be back in their billets by midnight. At the time of this incident I had a Standard Big 9 and was returning from the Lido in Norwich with three passengers who had paid the usual 2/6d. We had left Norwich late but never mind, there were no gates at Bodney, and we could creep in quietly.

It was a moonlit night, we had just passed through Hingham and we were climbing up what passes for a hill in Norfolk, when the solitude erupted. There appeared to be a firework display ahead and dark shadows passed back and forth overhead, I put the lights out, stopped the car and we all got as near to the ditch as possible, obviously an air-raid was going on, Watton was getting a pasting. After some time, maybe 10 minutes or so, everything quietened down and we resumed our journey, there was a bit of a glow ahead and as we breasted the hill we saw what appeared to be a flare-path laid out on the field. It wasn鈥檛 long before we realized that an aircraft had crashed in flames and broke up as it slid across the field, leaving flaming bits in a straight line. I stopped as near as I could get on the road and we rushed across to the scene to look for any survivors: it looked as if they had been trying to jump as it crashed and miraculously one was still alive. Still even more amazing, the dingy who most aircraft carry had self-inflated only yards from the survivor, designed to carry four men and luckily a good shape for a stretcher. We carefully placed him in the dingy and staggered over the field to the car, me beginning to worry about the car and what was going to happen to it.

He seemed to be free of any internal injuries but had a bloody face and moaned a bit as if he might get shot with his own Luger. As I started up the car with four inside and one on the running board I glanced back and saw two or three figures running in and out of the flames just as we had done, as I let in the clutch they turned to run in our direction, hoping the car would respond I accelerated away. Almost immediately we arrived at Watton and I drove the car into the camp and parked outside the Sick Bay, two of us rushed inside and asked a surprised orderly for a stretcher, he pointed to one and we rushed outside with it for the prisoner, brought him in and parked him on the stretcher on the floor, explained a bit to the orderly and gave him the gun.

Once in the car we tried to get out of the camp but found the gates shut with an irate policeman shouting for the driver to report to the Station Headquarters. Presenting myself to the Operations Room I was confronted by an irate Station Commander 鈥渁re you the clot who drove into my camp with lights blazing in the middle of an air raid 鈥� who are you?鈥� Corporal Puddifoot Sir 569115 RAF Bodney, sorry sir, I was just bringing a prisoner from the Ju.88 your Ground Defences just shot down up the road sir, 鈥淕roup Captain Vincent {ex marine later to be Air Vice Marshall}asked for more details then bellowed鈥� jolly good show鈥� then passed the news over the TANNOY to the rest of the camp. I took my leave and quietly retired, got into the car and drove quietly back to Bodney hoping that was it.

However, that was not it. The next afternoon I was summoned to the squadron commander鈥檚 office, he said that he wanted me to listen carefully and not to say anything until asked. He said he had received a peculiar request from 鈥渙n High鈥� at Watton that said, the prisoner who had been delivered to the Sick Bay last night was rightfully the Home Guard or so they claimed and in the interests of publicity, would I agree to letting them say they had captured him and since all this happened at about two hours after midnight last night, what do you say Corporal? Thanking my lucky stars I said, 鈥淚 agree Sir wholeheartedly.

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