大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Jan Moore for Kent Libraries and Archives and Canterbury City Council Museums, on behalf of Mr Anthony Larkins and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The most fascinating of all memories must be the story of the Thwaites ghost of our Herne Bay clock tower. The Germans never used the tower as a target, because Germans like everybody else, respect time. They could fly over it at any time during dalight hours and check their watches. But alas, our RAF soon put a stop to that. They too had a cunning plan!!! For the famous RAF station just a few miles east of us is Manston; famous in our history when you think of all the associated aeronautical achievements; the bouncing bomb, the test flights of the Gloucester Meteor,the world jet speed record.
Back to the story of the ghost...On occasion, Mr Louis Morgan was completely baffled by the stopping of the clock, when he gave daily attention to its maintenance needs, including winding by hand. For no known reason he would find that the clock had stopped, sometimes mornings, sometimes in the afternoons.
The RAF flew continual circuits between Reculver Towers, Herne Bay pier head and the clock tower, back to Reculver. This circuit was repeated at different times each day, for a week or more. It was at this time that the clock was found to have stopped. A suggestion at the time (never confirmed, but a likely story) was that the aircraft responsible, fitted with an enormous steel ring suspended below the wings and fuselage, was a Degauser. This was intended to activate or explode sea mines and bring them to the surface; but unforunately, this contraption when flying over the clock tower, caused everything to stop. Magnetic forces perhaps??
To test the effectiveness of the Degauser called for some very skillful flying and was sometimes seen at heights below 100 feet. After one or two circuits our clock just didn't work and so was not the fault of the alleged ghost of Mrs Thwaites, the lady responsible for the donation of the clock to the town!

These are my recollections of the war, all of which were very interesting to me as a young man, having truthfully enjoyed some of the excitement and adventure it caused.
To conclude my story, I'd like to give you an account of a meeting which took place between a former German Luftwaffe pilot, his wife and mine, many years later.

I fell in love with solid food at the age of eighteen months and we've been going steady ever since! But this story isn't about food, although it starts in a restaurant housed in a windmill.
There we are seated up at the bar, waiting to be called to our table, when a male voice of continental origin asks "if these seats are taken",indicating the two empty stools next to me. Confirming their availability, the diner and his lady companion now introduced themselves as Mr and Mrs Dieter Schroeder from Germany. An interesting couple, if only because we shared the same interest, namely windmills and good food.
"Had they visited many mills in Kent?"
"Oh yes, from Martin Mill in Dover, right around the North Kent coast, including mills at North Polders, Chillenden, Drapers, Oar Farm and Herne, before going on to our present location at the Old Mill at Borstal Hill"(circa 1974).
"Did they like our Kentish countryside and all the old windwills?"
"Oh yes, all so very pretty and historically fascinating."
"Would they go further afield into Sussex and Surrey?"
"Don't think so, Frau Schroeder had been interested to see where Dieter had been during the last war"
"Oh, why was that, had he been a prisoner of war here in England?"
"Nein, nein, just passing through as the Yanks would say!"
My frown must have prompted expansion to his reply,
"You see" he continued, "I served with the Luftwaffe during the last war and to navigate our staffel (squadron) on a correct route to London from a point at the North Foreland, all I had to do was first find my white windmill and then fly west, following the mill line and all the HE111's and ME109 escorts could arrive at Tower Bridge, without awakening the Seefahrers (navigators). They had the task of getting us out of the Thames estuary and fast for home, before your Spitfires fell on us from well above. We did used to wave to each other, I think you British call the sign 'a soldier's farewell'! Did not your wartime leader Churchill make the same gesture??"

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