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In 1940 I was living in Ashford, and rather than being evacuated I was sent to stay on my grandparent’s farm in Frittenden in the Weald of Kent.

I remember vividly the 15th of September on my grandparent’s farm, otherwise known as Battle of Britain day. The sky seemed filled with aeroplanes, and there were dogfights to be watched all day. We watched one German plane as it crashed in a field only half a mile away from the farm, trailing thick black smoke as it fell. Later on that day, when things had calmed down in the sky we went to see the crash. There were a couple of security people there, policemen I think, and they told us not to get too close to the aircraft because there were bullets and explosives that could still go off. Many many years later, in the 1960s, we found out that the German pilot who was in the plane had actually survived, and he contacted the people at Frittenden and came over. It was a very friendly reunion, and in fact I’m now involved in twinning English and German towns.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton from Westree Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of John Sweetman with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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