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I was brought up in a northern industrial town and I was an only child. My father had been an officer in the RFC and a pilot in WW1. He was quite anxious to join up again and hoped to be re-commissioned into the RAF. He appreciated that he was too old to fly, but there was always an admin role. He was told that he was too old for service so instead he was put in charge of Civil Defence for our area of the town. He continued with his day job.

I was still at school during the war. The two events I have written about happened some time in 1941/42. There were many more, some amusing, some frightening, some sad. This and the other that I have submitted, the Parachute Mine, were the most dramatic.

THE CRASH
We had an airfield, a POW camp and a convoy staging centre, all ‘just round the corner’ from where we lived. The Royal Army Veterinary Corps had its UK Headquarters at the end of the street too, so there was a great deal going on throughout the war.

One day, my friend Godfrey and I went out for a walk. We went over the football club’s car park, and towards the main gate to the airfield. There was a guard on the gate, with the guardhouse which was in the former airfield manager’s house, behind him. We said hello to the guard and he began to chat. We stopped talking to watch a DH89, Dragon Rapide (Domine) coming into land. Its top surfaces were camouflaged, green and brown. The underneath surfaces were yellow, denoting training or transport aircraft. Landing on the grass airfield was usually either west-east or the reverse. Summerfield wire-mesh tracking served as the runway.

This plane was landing east to west. This entailed an easy approach, over the adjacent racecourse and passing over the main road which separated the airfield from the racecourse. It was quite a clear run in except for the RT mast in the middle of the racecourse. However, at the start of the runway just over the road, were some trees. They were quite tall and formed a small copse. Therefore, planes landing had to clear them before touching down. The DH89 just caught the tops of them. It bounced up into the air and came down with a huge bang right in the middle of the road. All the three of us just gasped as it burst into flames. We were about 100 yards away.

The airman on guard leapt round and ran to the guardroom yelling at the top of his voice. Somehow he dropped his revolver at my feet, so I picked it up. Godfrey and I stared at each other in disbelief. What should we do? Go and rescue was our immediate thought but by this time, a matter of seconds, the guardroom had all rushed out and one of them said very firmly ‘You two stay right here.’
The white faced airman returned and I gave him back his gun. We said not a word, just staring as the pilot and his full load of nine airmen were consumed in front of our eyes. It seemed ages before the RAF fire tender and two of the town’s fire engines arrived. By this time the wooden structured plane was burning fiercely. As people often recall with such tragic events, everything seemed to be in slow motion.

The kindly guard put his arm round us, and said very quietly, ‘I think you’d better go home lads.’ We did just that. Godfrey, though a year older then me, suffered badly from shock for over two years. I had some nasty dreams, but though the memory is crystal clear now, there were fortunately no long-term effects for me. In fact it was the second crash I’d witnessed, the first being a few years before, on that same airfield. Those trees were all cut down a week later.

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