大象传媒

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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Phil Sealey of the Somerset County Museum Team on behalf of Graham A. Granville, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

鈥淎fter my cousin Jean was born and three weeks old, my mother and I were staying at Puriton, as my aunt was ill and my mother was looking after her sister and her family.
I was the only child in our family then and we lived at Cossington. I was six when the war started, so would have been about seven or eight then. My mother and I used to go for walks after I came out of Puriton School, where I went whilst at Puriton, another aunt, my mother鈥檚 brother鈥檚 wife was school mistress. We went out for a walk on the day the plane crashed, we were walking toward the R.O.F. (Royal Ordinance Factory) on the Woolavington Road, and we could on that afternoon/evening hear planes in the sky. When we got to about 陆 a mile from my aunt鈥檚 an old lady came along on her bike and said to my mother 鈥業f I were you my dear, I would take the baby and the boy home, those planes are dog fighting up there, you all could get hurt鈥�.
After a while Mum decided to turn around and head back to my aunt and uncle鈥檚 house. My aunt鈥檚 house was in Middle Street where the noise of the planes could still be heard. At the back of the house was a lean-to where bikes were kept together with outside store cupboards and tool shed. I went out from under the lean-to and the lady next-door Mrs O鈥橠ocherty told me to get back under. After awhile I looked out from under the lean-to and shouted to my mother that there were birds coming out of the plane, this was of course parachutes. Not long after that my uncle, who was in the Home Guard, came rushing in on his bike, threw it down, ran in the house and came out with a gun, I found out later it was a .303 rifle. My uncle went off toward the back of the R.O.F., he had seen a parachute come down over there, he was the one who found the pilot of the German plane, he told us later he had offered him his watch, the pilot could not move as he had lost both legs, or did as a result of jumping out of the plane; later the pilot was taken to Bridgwater Hospital.
In the meantime the plane had circled around and around until it lost height and then crashed, I gather it took a chimney off a house in Waterloo Terrace. It came down into an orchard opposite, in a dead end road for cars, where there was a 鈥榙rain鈥� (pathway between walls) running to Middle Street.
The old lady, who told my mother to take my cousin and I home, lived in a cottage in that road and when she got home her curtains were on fire, but fireman put them out, so she told us afterwards; there was also a Dutch barn with hay or straw that was also on fire in the same road. Children were not allowed anywhere near the plane until the police and army, etc., had made sure there was no problem with anything that could explode.
I went back to my aunt and uncle鈥檚 house and stood at the end of another 鈥榙rain鈥� next to the house. With the same, I heard a screech of tyres, a sports car - later to be found to be an MG - came around the corner by Puriton Post Office on two wheels and when it came alongside of me, the driver asked, how he could get to where the crashed plane was; I told him to go down by the 鈥榙rain鈥� and into the road. It appeared the man had borrowed the car from Westonzoyland Airfield [about 8-9 miles away] and had taken eight minutes to get to Puriton, I also found out from him later, when we were allowed to go near the plane, that he was the person who shot the plane down, people were carrying him on their shoulders, he was 19 years old and had only been flying for a short time.
In 1955/56 Smith Bros Ltd, Builders, who I was working for, had purchased the orchard where the plane crashed and were building bungalows on the site. In the lunch time I used to go down the bottom of the site with a pick and shovel, everyone used to think I was mad but I used to dig up bits of the plane that had gone into the ground with such force [when] the plane crashed. I lived in Chilton Polden then, until I married in 56; when the plane crashed my home was in Cossington. It was later mentioned by my uncle that, when he was sat with the pilot of the German plane, the German told him he had many friends in Bristol and many memories of his time at Bristol University. He had been sent to bomb Bristol but had dropped his bombs short and that was when the young British pilot had started his run at the German bomber.鈥�

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