大象传媒

This contribution to People鈥檚 War was received by the Action Desk at 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk and submitted to the website with the permission and on behalf of Mr Keith Wils
I was aged just 7 when WW2 broke out and Mum and Dad decided that as London was not the best place for me to be I was packed off to North Wales to live with my Grandma for the duration. It was really like going home as I had been born in her cottage and lived there until it was time to go to school. It was in a hamlet called Llanenddwyn, part of the village Dyffryn Ardudwy, which is midway between Barmouth and Harlech in the then County of Merioneth.

There were four of us, all boys. In late 1940, early 鈥�41, the time of my story, Leonard was six, Lionel nine, Derek and I both eight.
Let me set the scene, the cottage was the middle of three, the first had at one time been an inn, the other two had been stables. The accommodation consisted of one room downstairs, one room upstairs divided into two and very basic facilities outside with water coming from a tap in the churchyard wall. A farmhouse was situated about twenty yards away, the Parish Church and rectory completed the hamlet. An R.A.F. aerodrome had been built two miles away in Llanbedr the neighbouring village. We had a railway, the Great Western and a proper station as it had two tracks. There was also a siding where a unit had been constructed to mix tarmacadam with chippings to construct a hard runway, as boys we watched the deliveries and mixing. An assortment of followed, Hurricanes, Spitfires, Boulton Paul Defiants, Avro Ansons, Airspeed Oxfords and later Typhoons, Mosquitos, occasionally a Westland Lysander with its 鈥渙dd鈥� shaped wings. We became experts in aircraft recognition. We purchased post cards from WH smith in Barmouth. These had line drawings 鈥� side, front, rear elevations and plan views underneath and above the aircraft. We spent days from our vantage points in the sand dunes watching the comings and goings at the aerodrome.

One day we spotted an aircraft heading towards us flying very low over the shore line from Barmouth, even with all our knowledge we had no idea what it was. It came closer, two engines, very quiet, the framed Perspex panels of the nose were clearly visible. We could see the pilot in the cockpit and two guns protruding from the nose with the airgunner crouched behind. Another crew member held a large camera mounted in the door opening. We knew the drab grey colour was not British and could clearly see the black cross on the fuselage and the swastika in black, white and red on the tail. We were staring at a Dornier Do17 nicknamed The Flying Pencil.
It was taking photographs of the aerodrome and the shore line. We stood up and waved, all the crew waved back, after all we were just kids and they had a job to do. For years I have wondered what happened to that aircraft and its crew.
A year later we watched as a Dornier Do17 was shot down near Trawsfynydd 10 miles away.

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