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I used to cycle up to Raydon airfield and remember seeing a ‘Thunderbolt’ fighter crash at Raydon wood. It lost power on take-off and the pilot ejected when the aircraft was literally no more than 100 feet and he landed in a ploughed field and did a sort of barrel-roll and wasn’t badly injured at all.

But the aircraft dropped into Raydon Wood and exploded and blew all the leaves off. We used to go up there later in the war, looking for ‘drop tanks’. Sometimes the pilots would come back from their missions and release their drop-tanks and it was a great ambition to get 2. Then you could bolt them together and you had a boat!

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