大象传媒

This is Robin Downs' story; it has been added by Helen Leech, with permission from the author, who understands the terms and conditions of adding his / her story to the website.

During the Battle of Britain I was thirteen years old and living in Jersey Road, Strood. I remember on one occasion a German Messerschmidt plane flying low over the gardens and heading towards the church at Frindsbury. As it reached that point the anti-aircraft guns in Chatham Dockyard fired a burst near it and it turned, obviously disabled and losing height flew back in our direction. As it reached the end of Jersey Road only apparently a couple of hundred feet up the pilot opened up his machine guns. We naturally thought that he was firing at us and immediately flattened ourselves on the ground. The plane, its propellers nearly stopped, crashed on Broom Hill, then used for farming and now a park. The farm workers, believing as we had done that they had been fired at, tried to get at the pilot who wisely stayed in the aircraft until some soldiers arrived to take him prisoner. He had in fact been firing to get rid of his ammunition which may have exploded when he crashed. This incident, which may well be remembered by other people in Strood at that time, made a lasting impression on me. A short time ago a programme about occupied France was shown starring John Thaw. In the opening scene he was machine gunned by a Messerschmidt, in every way, even to the yellow nose, identical to the plane which came down in Strood all those years ago. This created with me at any rate a strong feeling of d茅j脿 vu.

Robin Downs

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