From: chance wolf (chance_wolf@shaw.ca)
Date: Sat Apr 24 2004 - 07:17:34 PDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas M McHugh" <tmmchugh@msn.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2004 4:27 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] Normady discovery
> I lost a Cousin in WWII. We thought he went down in the North Sea. Only
a
> few years ago, his plane was found in Holland buried on a farm. The
farmer
> has now stated that he was told to bury it, but he never told anyone after
> the war, until now.
Cool story. It's kind of a dimmer memory now, but when I was about 9 I was
over in England with my parents and stayed overnight at RAF Lindholm where a
friend of my parents was stationed. From what I remember they were
discontinuing flying operations at the base and were converting it over to a
Radar Station. Dad was invited to go visit the command center that night
where the privilege was deemed "not for kids", so I got to stay home, but as
they were getting ready to leave, I was still listening to their
conversation through the door ajar in my room, and this guy was telling my
father an interesting story.
Turns out that when they were expanding the radar installation they needed
to annex the land at the end of the old runway, which had been a fairly mean
and nasty swamp for decades. As they were draining the swamp, they came
across a WWII bomber. Then another. I can't remember how many aircraft
they eventually pulled out of the muck, but do remember that they still had
their crews in them, and that they were reported as "missing over the
Channel" at the time. Seems they tried landing when Lindholm was socked in
with fog, overshot the runway, and wound up in the swamp instead. I imagine
the fog would have the effect of dampening the noise of the engines to any
listeners on the ground, and in any event, anyone hearing but not seeing the
aircraft in the dark and fog would probably just assume the pilot was either
going around for another approach or diverting to another airfield. Wow.
They "diverted" alright.
(I've never looked into this as an adult, so I suppose our RAF Lindholm host
could've been playing it up - but I remember his voice being very
matter-of-fact as though he were detailing some list of car repairs.)
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