11 November 2020

Remembrance Day

 

My mother's favourite cousin died in July of 1942. He was killed in a training accident in England. Among my mother's things are two boxes of letters he wrote to her from his time in training, including the one he wrote days before his death, when he mentioned how proud he was to be part of his crew.
He was a navigator in a Stirling bomber. The family was told the crash was due to the plane being lost in a fog. That is at odds with other reports of the crash. I believe the family was told it was due to fog to spare their feelings.
 
The crash began with the plane itself. The Stirling was the first of the British four engine heavy bombers. it was originally designed with a 120 foot wingspan, but they had no hangars that could fit a plane that size, so thirty feet were chopped off the wings, which cut back on the amount of lift the plane had, reducing its ceiling (many Stirlings were lost because they were hit by bombs dropped by the higher flying Lancasters and Halifaxes) and gave it a terribly slow rate of climb.
 
At the time of the crash, the crew had an observer on board. Shortly before the crash, the plane was seen to fly over the the observers village. This lead the board of inquiry to conclude that the crew had probably decided to give the observer a treat and show him his home from the air. He probably even said 'I can see my house from here!' They passed low to give him a good view.
 
After buzzing the village, the plane found itself in a valley which ended in a large hill. Witnesses said they saw the crew throwing equipment out of the plane. This would have been in an attempt to lighten the plane, to enable it to climb a little faster to clear the hill. It didn't.
 
Only the tail gunner survived the crash, and not for long.
 
Though he never saw combat, my mother's cousin and the crew of that bomber too were casualties of war, and are to be remembered on this day.