Wartime miscellany

Kaga. The quote above regarding the Junker crash on 16 Sept 40 comes from a Military Archaeology website. The crash is also featured by Coventry Telegraph in this article which includes a photo of the wreckage. The previous discussion you mention is also in respect of this crash: Your recollection is of a crash in the week after the blitz, which would be the Heinkel on 19 Nov 40

Midland Red, then I got my dates wrong, sorry about that. It was definitely the Junkers crash I visited. But I never heard of a second crash, although I visited the Half Moon pub, Withybrook, often during that time. Our friends' farm was down the switchback lane of that village.

A bit more info about the Junkers crash - it hit balloon cable site 4, 916 Squadron, was wrecked, some bombs exploded, some jettisoned over Coventry Does anyone know the balloon cable location?

The Heinkel crashed at Workshop Farm, Main Street, Withybrook Lionel Perkins, the dairy farmer there, witnessed the crash

This article is from the Midland Daily Telegraph 20th November 1940 from the British newspaper archive site.

I mentioned this in a previous post, the plane crashed at Hopsford Hall Farm, near Withybrook. Kaga, I would presume that the Half Moon is what is now called the Pheasant??????. This plane, a Junkers JU88 crashed on Sept 16th 1940.

Thanks to all the people that responded to this. matchle55 - I think the last time I went to the Half Moon was around 1949 and we used the aqueduct under the canal to cross the farm fields. The main entrance to the farm was from the Brinklow road, the entrance now has been changed to the switchback road in Withybrook so I've been told. The house my parents lived in at that time has now vanished under the golf course.

Yes, the Half Moon became the Pheasant

matchle55. The sequel of the story, my young 10 year old brother went back 5 years later to Hopsford Hall Farm and worked for them for some years

I have fished the pool at Hopsford Hall many times, this is the first time I have heard anything about the plane coming down there..

The face of this coin is of the picture below - three gliders, thirty men aboard each, had app. three minutes to exit the plane, capture three bridges intact before the Panzers crossed the bridges or detonated the bridges, this would either be the success or failure of the D-Day landing (the whole operation in darkness). The gliders had to fly in total darkness, land in a small field as close to the bridges as possible - the men had to exit the plane and do the job in total darkness and quiet before the Germans could detonate the bridge, then hold until the paras had dropped and joined them - the whole thing was the success or failure of D-Day, the 127,000 men getting off the beaches and establish a bridgehead. It is a commemorative D-Day coin, perhaps I should not have written anything, but few people would know what the picture on the coin was about.

As the centenary of the end of the First World War comes close, I can only sit and watch the television ceremony, but for me I will be remembering the times I visited past battlefields to pay my respects. Also the time I attended the burial of one of my friends in a war grave in a foreign country. As this is the centenary I shall remember standing alone on a past battlefield many years ago at Ypres and listening to the Last Post echoing across the field where my father had soldiered, my eyes glistening as I stood at attention.

The next few days we will hear more about June 6th - D-Day. Above I posted a picture of the commemorative coin of the 50th anniversary, and a picture from the coin plus a little of the story. This year is the 75th anniversary.

1941 Soldier went to Citizens Advice Bureau, didn't know what to do, wife left him, took all their clothes, 15 year old daughter's as well. He had already transferred his army allowance to her. CAB gave him clothes and money. As soon as it was arranged, wife begged to be taken back, then stole the lot again. He went back to CAB, they helped with clothes and money for daughter again, but made him keep it in daughter's name. You could buy oiled wool but expensive. Rationing and coupons didn't mean that's what you got, if the shops didn't have what you wanted you went without. 150,000 eggs were stolen in one raid, then sold at a 1d each. 80,000 ration books stolen in Brighton - when the gang were arrested, it was the enforcement officer at the food office had stolen them and sold them on. There was no tinned food for a month, fish and meat tinned were rationed at 16 points per month, 16 points = 1lb. Beans in sauce 2lb a month - this 16 points was extended to cover rice, canned fruit, condensed milk, cereals, biscuits. Shopkeepers were not allowed to wrap in newspaper, take your own bag. All waste became no waste. Then Pearl Harbour.

Last night channel 4 D-Day topic, Good for me to see Coventry just re-built a Dakota aircraft.