But the story of the plane crashes in the vicinity is also dramatic. Here are some interesting facts:
Pat Carty, the author and researcher who has told us so much about Cheddington Airfield during the war, first became interested when he found out that the had been 170 – yes 170 – aircraft crashes in Buckinghamshire alone since war broke out.
The RAF stopped using the Airfield because there were too many hills and obstructions which made taking off and landing a dangerous exercise. But this didn’t stop our government handing it over to the US Airforce who claimed to have made safety improvements.
Pat Carty’s book – Secret Squadrons of the Eighth – contains a picture of Aylesbury Fire Brigade helping to clear the wreckage of a crashed American plane.
In 1945, Neal Dean, ten years old at the time, recalls rushing with a friend towards an explosion in the middle of a Long Marston field with ‘bullets flying all over the place’. The fire brigade soon arrived and moved him to safety.
In the same year, Don Winfield, fourteen years old, heard a bang and ran down Chapel Lane, across the brook to a crashed plane in the middle of another field. He remembers bullets flying around and the bodies of the pilots still in their seats.
Sources
Tring Rural Villages in the Twentieth Century by Jenny and Alan Warner, chapters 2, 3 and 6.
Tringruralhistory.co.uk, Book Review of Secret Squadrons of the Eighth by Pat Carty
One Comment “Plane Crashes during World War II”
Ian rance
says:Remember the crash in long marston my grandfather was in home guard they had to guard crash sites he was also was the tailor for the American camp and knew many aircrew I remember one coming to the house in wilstone to pay for a private tailoring job but didn’t have the money so he left his watch as security he didn’t return to collect it such sad times