76masseyman
Member
- Location
- Lincolncestershire
Uncle Hubert of the Air Ministry had a big job down your way. They shot down a Heinkel 111 into a wood near Crowcombe and Uncle had to defuse the bombs in the burnt out wreckage. I have a letter from the officer of a nearby AA battery, who says he found uncle curled up fast asleep inside the tail of the plane after he had finished, so they took him back and fed and watered him .
Here are some photos of the Heinkel and the RAF BD Squad taking away a bomb. The tail fin is fairly intact, but the centre of the bomber has burned out@Red Fred , we farm very near to the village of Crowcombe, and I've not heard of the Heinkel 111 so I shall have to ask around. Any further info to pin point a location?
Many buildings left ?An entire WW2 airfield, was cool growing up as a kid but is becoming increasingly a PIA.
When I was young, free and single, I used to enjoy going off to try to find these places to take "then-and-now" pictures, as Uncle used to go all over the country looking at the latest bombers that had come down to see what they could learn about the bombs and weapons. I went down to Rexton Gorse about 20 years ago. I believe it had a public footpath through the woods, but unfortunately the photos don't show much of the surrounding landscape.@Red Fred
Thank you, for posting those photo's, actually that is very close to us, approx. half a mile away!
Its also spitting distance from where the US Army camp was then built later on.
I've genuinely never heard about that crash.
Pretty much all of the brick built buildings. The Hangars were dismantled sometimes in the 50’s I think.Many buildings left ?
Like many, we have land drains dug by POW's, Italian I was told, under the war Ag scheme, we still have the map from 1944 that we were given when they were completed. It has pride of place in our land drain bible.
Just down the road there was an army camp established by the Americans and then used as a POW camp for both Germans and Italians if local memory is correct.
The local youth hostel was requisioned to be used as US officer accommodation and training. My grandfather told me a story of when he and one of his workers were working in the field next door and could hear the US Army drill sergeant giving the officer recruits a hard time.
After a morning of listening to the drill sergeant, my Grandads worker had had enough, and shouted over the hedge "shut yer bloody noise , you noisy bugger" in his finest Somerset accent. Apparently it went very quiet for a long time!
We also have quite a collection of odds and ends that we assume came out of the army camp, as they all have US Army markings.
@Red Fred , we farm very near to the village of Crowcombe, and I've not heard of the Heinkel 111 so I shall have to ask around. Any further info to pin point a location?
Probably quite a call for one of those at the moment in your neck of the woods, could certainly use it here.We have a Dukw View attachment 859042View attachment 859042
Wow what a find what happened to it?Found this. German maxim machine gun View attachment 859089View attachment 859090