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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by a volunteer from Lincoln CSV Action Desk on behalf of Fred Hurt and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Hurt fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

St Mary Le Wigford Church

It was Evensong and we were all dressed in our Sunday best. We were around the back of the church having a smoke and laugh before the service started and suddenly we looked over to our right, towards the railway station and saw what we thought was a parachute coming down only it wasn’t and all I could think was that it was a helmet with the oxygen mask fastened to it. We couldn’t go over the wall because it was too big and we had our white surplices on but next thing we knew we saw a real parachute coming down and this time there was a man on it. It was a real surprise to see how quickly he was going sideways, right down Canwick Road at about 10 miles an hour. He landed in one of the garden near the new South Park I think. Apparently he kicked off his boots and told the people there he was Canadian. It never got into the paper. I’ll bet it was shock for the people to see him coming down in their garden. We hadn’t heard any aeroplane but I think that we caught sight of one going off to the right side of the Cathedral. Just as we looked up there was an aeroplane near the trees by St Mary’s Church in St Mary’s Street and I was wondering what had happened. Then suddenly, from Wigford Way it must have just skimmed the rooftops there and the wing just missed the tower of the church. I thought it was a Hurricane and it was painted pale green. Normally they were painted duck egg blue but I later found out they painted them this green colour as well. It might possibly have been to indicate it was an American squadron, I’m not sure. Anyway it was silent. It had been gliding right round the Cathedral. There were actually two planes but we hadn’t realised this. This one came passed and it seemed to go quite a long way, nearly to Oxford Street. It hit the houses and the ‘plane seemed to hit the people in the street and the engine carried on, going through the upper floors and set everything on fire. There was a big cloud of smoke but I didn’t hear an explosion, just a sort of ‘Whoof’ noise. One lad was missing but the pilot was okay. It turned out he’d collided with another plane after they had been dogfighting over the city. Both planes were on the same side and had been messing around. There were quite a few of these types of incidents which happened up near Goxhill where the Americans had their big fighter base. It was mad, particularly when you think of the cost of the ‘planes etc.

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