WIX Archives
There maybe bits at the bottom of my road Mick
Posted by Will Fowler on Thu Oct 11, 2001 12:56:15 AM
In reply top Manchester bits 'n' pieces ? posted by MM on Wed Oct 10, 2001 06:21:07 AM
Hi Mick,
Strange you should talk about Manchesters, as I mentioned, I live just down the road from the ex-RAF/USAF Podington air base (there's still a lot of it standing).
Well during the war a Manchester bomber that was on the outbound leg of its trip was attacked over Wellingborough by a Spitfire (thought it was German, it was a cloudy night) well its course took it over Wollaston and the pilot managed to keep it aloft until it had just passed over Wollaston, its heading by now had it on a direct course for the Aerodrome which was active with B-17's at the time so the pilot tried to turn it away from there to the open fields at the bottom of Hookhams Path and Sheperds hill.
Well saddly the Manchester was too badly damaged and was down an engine and crashed just over the brow of the second hill not too far from the two farmers houses that stand up there.
The aircraft crashed into a field and blew up, it went in verticle and was fully loaded, no one survived the crash.
Locals ran up there to see what they could do but the bombs kept going off so the home guard was placed around the site to keep people away.
The locals went back to their homes and the home guard mulled around watching the remains that were visable smolder, then in the early hours yet another bomb went off which the locals thought had killed the home guard who had a habit of looking for things that they could 'borrow' so they all ran back up to see if there was anyone who needed help, thankfully no one was further hurt.
The R.A.F sent a clean up group to take a look but the condition of the remaining items on the surface indicated it was fruitless, they took what they could including the remains of the crew that they could find but not much was taken away.
When I was a lad in the 70's I used to go up there with freinds looking for bits from this crash site and those of the B-17's that came down around there as well.
One day we found a flight glove with a finger bone still in it, being yound kids this freaked up out so we put it back and left the site alone (there was lots of 50 cal shells from the B-17 sites that we really wanted).
No one has ever gone to the site since, there has not been any digs done there either, I know this for a fact, my family has lived in the area for hundreds of years.
So I am thinking that there should be a fair old lot of parts sitting under the surface, its still farm land today, and very little has changed, I would put money down the both the engines are still there.
There is still a lot of talk about making a memorial to this crew, I know they just put one up at Podington to the USAF crews that flew from there but not to the Manchester crew.
Oh well, hope this has helped.
Regards,
Will
: Talking of Vultures,
:
: Any word on Manchester bits anywhere ?
: What about the example in the North Sea Cees, any good ?
:
: Seeing as the Stirling, Whitley and Albemarle are going to
: be resurrected in some form, and the Halifax ,Hampden and
: Wellington are doing better now than 20-30 years ago, per
: haps it is time to have a look for Manchester bits.
:
: To my mind the Manchester is very important to aviation hi
: story, and especially WWII history, as without the fortuna
: te mistakes that were made with it ,we may not have had th
: e ever so incredibly important Lancaster to help win the w
: ar for us.
:
: Pity the silly buggers scrapped that Manchester from out o
: f the lake back in the fifties....why didn't they just lea
: ve it there and forget about it....for me ,Tony, Cees and
: Paul to "discover"???
:
: .....we really never appreciate what we have until it is g
: one.....
:
: .....somehow I don't think we will ever learn that lesson
: either.....
:
: Cheers
: Mick
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