大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Johnny Stinger and has been added to the site with his permission..

I was born on the 26th May 1948 in a nissan hut in Warton, as far as I can see I am the only person to have been born in a hut, but I bet I'm not the only one to have been conceived in one.

When I was about 3 months old my father who was an American G. I. was travelling back and forth between Warton and Germany as he was helping to clear the landmines that had been left. He married my Mum in 1944 at St. Mark's Church Preston, I have an older brother called Eddie after my Dad, in America they always call the first born after his Dad and the second son being me after both grandparents so I am called Johnny after Mums Dad and Philip after my Dad's Dad.

Dad had gone back to Germany when I was about 3 months old and he had an accident when a landmine blew up, he got shrapnell in his left leg and was ordered to go home to Warton until the wounds had healed, so he got a lift on an aircraft that was going to BAD2 Warton. The aircraft crashed into the English Channel and Dad was in the water for 2 days before being rescued, by that time the cold had got into his already injured leg and it had to be amputated. He was put aboard a hospital ship and sent back to the States.

Mum was notified about this and she was making plans for us all to join him in America. This took a while because of red tape and I was so young, it was about a week before we were due to leave Warton when Mum got a letter from Dad saying, don't bother coming I have found someone else and want a divorce. Wow! I am glad that I was too young to see the pain that Mum must have gone through.

After about 6 years Mum met someone else and remarried and had another 3 children. I am afraid that my Mum, who was my best friend died in 1971, she was only 46. It was after she died that I decided to try and find my Dad, we had heard nothing from him since Mum got the letter. It took me year and years to get anywhere, as when you write the States they can take up to 2 years to answer your letters. After about 15 years of this someone suggested that I try the Salvation Army, as they are supposed to be the best trackers in the world. But after another 5 years they said that they thought he was dead because they could not find any record of him being alive, anyway they said they would have one last attempt. Another year passed and a Salvation Army Major came to my house and told me they we giving up the search and advised me to forget it. I had this feeling that if I flew to America I would bump into him while walking down the street, silly really when you think how big the place is. I had to think about it for a while, what should I do? I decided that I would just ring America and ask anyone that answered the phone to give me all the numbers of "Stingers" listed in the book and I would ring them. It would cost me a bit but I thought I'll do it. After 3 nights of doing this, I decided to give it just one more night (sounds like a song) and then I would have to stop. I got through to Pittsburgh and spoke to the superviser of a phone company, she said that she had 16 Stingers listed, but because of Phone company rules she could only give two names each hour. Anyway she gave me my 2 numbers, the first one was a small boy in the house alone, I didn't want to worry him so I said 'I'll call back when your Daddies home.' The next number was about to change my life. I got through to a lady called Lorraine Stinger and I asked her, 'do you know an Ed Stinger?' she said 'yes he's here'. There was no way that I thought he was my Dad after over 20 years of looking for this guy, I had got loads of knocks along the way, next question I asked her, 'how old is he?' she said he was 70, bang on, but still not sure, I then asked her another question. I said, 'here is a funny question how many legs does he have?' she said, 'just the one.' Wow! my mind was reeling I asked could I talk to him, 'but before I do' I said 'does he have a good heart?' I didn't want to kill him with the shock. He came on the phone and I asked, 'were you in the Army during the war?' and he said he was. I asked, 'were you stationed in England at Warton Lancashire?' he said he was, I then asked him was he married to a lady called Dorothy he said yes, 'Wow!' I said 'I think that you must be my Dad' and he said, 'which one are you, Eddie or Johnny?' I'd found him after all this time.

Dad had got married to Lorraine a few months earlier, It was 3 a.m. here in Blackpool and I woke my family up to tell them that I had found my Dad, their Grandad, then it hit me, I never got his address, so I rung him back and got it and he took mine.

The next few weeks was a flurry of paperwork going back and forth. My brother Eddie and I went to Pittsburgh to meet him and it was magic I met 300 American relatives that I never knew I had we had some great parties, then I came home to Blackpool, but my brother Eddie stayed there. Later that same year (1992) Dad and Lorraine came to Blackpool for a month as my wife (Sue) and I have 7 children and Dad wanted desperatly to meet his grandchildren. ( Dad had been married 4 time, but Eddie and I were his only children). It was on one of the days whilst he was here that we were driving about the Warton/Freckleton area and as were going past the Holy Trinity Church in Freckleton, Dad said, 'thats where that plane came down in 1943. I was going to Preston in my jeep and it crashed right in front of me,' he said ' I rushed to the door and couldn't get it open, then two other guys came and we pushed it open there was a little girl on fire so I took my heavy coat off and rolled her in it to put the fire out, then I ran with her to the jeep to take her to hospital, but all the medics were arriving as everything was screaming towards the crash and they took her of me,' he said after that, I was catching kids ( Kids were being thrown over a high school wall and G.I.s were catching them on the other side). I asked, 'how did the little girl get on?' he said 'okay, I think I went to hospital and stayed, I read dozens of books to her.'I asked, 'what was her name?' 'Oh I can't recall, it was a long time ago, I think it was Ruthy of something like that.'

You have to remember that this man was a stranger to me and to my shame I thought that it was just a tall story. 1 Year later there was a big write up about the crash as it was the 50th anniversary and there was a picture on the front page of the Gazette and a lady in the picture was called Ruby. Ruby was a survivor of the crash, one of only 3. It was bothering me that Ruthy and Ruby are very similar, so I tracked her down, she lived on the Isle of Wight and I rang her, I said, 'hello my name is Johnny Stinger and I am ringing from Blackpool.' Before I could explain she said, 'do you know Eddie Stinger?' I said, 'yes he's my Dad, how do you know him?' She said that she knew him from the Freckleton Crash, he did get her out of the burning building and he sat at her bedside telling her stories all the time, Ruby said, that he was there when she went to sleep, and there when she woke up. Ruby and Dad spoke on the telephone but they never met again, Dad died in 1995, I met Ruby in 2001 and she showed me a worn out picture of my Dad in his M.P.s uniform that she had carried about for 60 years. Ruby has moved from the Isle of Wight and now lives in Freckleton, we are both members of the BAD2 Association so we meet pretty often, its good to know that she has a link with my Dad.

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