大象传媒

One night in April 1941, when I was 9, I looked out of the bedroom window, and saw a huge plane on fire. It was very low, and making a horrible roaring noise. This was at Church Lane, Sompting, Titchill Farm, which is still there today. It was what people in the country call a blackthorn Winter. (It means that everything goes cold very suddenly and the blackthorn in the hedges comes out.) My mother and I were alone, and it was an isolated farm.

Shortly afterwards there was a loud explosion. The plane had hit the hillside, and we heard later it was loaded with bombs, and they went off, one after another. It was absolutely terrifying. My mother opened the back door, and we could hear cries, presumambly from the crew. They thought they were over the sea, so they'd jumped. Some had life jackets on. Being war time we weren't allowed near the site in the morning, and it's been very hard to find out anymore than I already know from my experience. One of the crew was calling out 'Camerade', but he was badly wounded, and died the next morning. The news that went around the little farming community was that the pilot was the son of a German pastor, and that the oldest airmen was only 23.

In the morning, my mother went into the farmyard, and there was an airman's boot lying in the chicken trough, and another one nearby. One boot ws badly burnt, thick leather, and lined with lambswool, but must have been kicked off in a hurry. We kept them for a while, but eventually gave one to the postmaster of Sompting, a Mr Atterbury. Latter on the damaged boot got left behind in a later house move.

The exact site of the crash has eluded me but if anybody is researching this incident I would be glad if they could contact me. The crew were buried in Sompting St.Mary's Churchyard, and as school children we used to go and look at the small white wooden cross that marked their graves. Now I've forgotten the names that were on there, perhaps somebody knows where the remains of these young men were taken after the war. I was told they were re-interred in a German cemetary somewhere in the North of England.

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