Approximately 27 years ago, I got married, and my wife at that time lived with her family at Church Farm, Foulsham. It was not long after this that I first became aware of the significant history related to this farm as a result of wartime events, which resulted in the tragic loss of many young and brave aircrew. Now, 27 years on, I have finally been able to commemorate this event.
For those of you who don’t know Foulsham, it is an old established market village in the County of Norfolk, and is listed in the Doomsday book of 1085. Our American friends may be interested to note that the village gave its name to a family of Puritan dissidents who fled England for the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, (and later Exeter, New Hampshire). Spelling of the name was slightly changed to Folsom. Today, these American descendants of Foulsham have given rise to Folsom, California, Folsom Street in San Francisco, Folsom Prison – all named for California pioneer and New Hampshire native Joseph Libbey Folsom, as well as General Nathaniel Folsom who represented New Hampshire in the Continental Congress. (Source: Wikipedia)
In World War Two, RAF Foulsham played host to RAF 100 Group, a special operations Unit who flew bombers including the Handley Page Halifax and de Havilland Mosquito in electronic warfare missions. During that time approximately 2,500 airmen, WAAF, Australian and New Zealanders became part of village life. A comprehensive photo archive, including some taken at an Air show following the cessation of war, for those with computers can be seen by visiting the community archive at http://foulshamarchives.weebly.com/ The event which captured my attention over past years was the history behind the loss of several young men on the night of 31 August 1943.
At 2330 hours, while on a training flight, B/17F 42/5376 was involved in a mid-air collision with an RAF Beaufighter from the 96th Squadron over Norfolk. Only the two Waist Gunners managed to bail out, suffering a few scratches and bruises. Church Farm, Foulsham, and its outbuilding, were damaged in the crash, along with some cattle being killed.
The aircraft involved was: B-17F-50-BO 42-5376 ‘JJ-X’ ‘Eager Eagle’ 305th BG, 422nd BS
The American crew were:
• 1st Lt. Floyd H. Truesdell. Pilot – Killed
• 2nd Lt. Allan N. McDaniel Co-Pilot – Killed
• 2nd Lt. William M. Cullity Jr. Navigator – Killed
• 1st Lt. Robert W. Barrall. Bombardier – Killed
• T/Sgt James N. Yongue. Top Turret Gunner/Engineer – Killed
• T/Sgt Joseph F. Van Esley. Radio Operator – Killed
• S/Sgt Charles F. Awrajcewicz. Ball Turret Gunner – Killed
• Sgt Carl G. Ruehl. Left Waist Gunner – Baled out, survived • S/Sgt John E. Breen. Right Waist Gunner – Baled out, survived.
• S/Sgt George D. Simon. Tail Gunner – Killed
• Squadron Leader E. M. Appleton. Observer (RAF) – Killed
The crew of the RAF Beaufighter V8715 were:
• F/O (119.881) Frederick Neal ROBERTSON DFC (Pilot) RAFVR – Killed in action
• F/O (47873) Bertram Ernest DYE DFM (Observer) RAF – Killed in action
Eager Eagle was assigned to the 305th Bomb Group of 422nd Bomb Squadron. This was a United States American Air Force plane which flew from Chelverston Base 105 in Northamptonshire. Most of these young men were already experienced aircrew, having seen and survived the traumas associated with flying aerial combat sorties. They would have started basic training in the States, pilot, navigation, air gunnery, etc. eventually being assigned to the European Theatre of Operations (ETO). I believe many of the air and ground crews of the 305th came to England via the Atlantic on the Queen Mary, whilst the aircrew flew their aircraft on the North Atlantic air ferry route via Newfoundland, to airfields in Ireland and the south-west of England.
The young 24-year-old pilot of Eager Eagle already wore the wings of the RAF and those of the USAF Air Force. The following is an account of his first ever mission:
VALOR: VICTORY FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT by John L. Frisbee, Contributing Editor
Seconds before ‘bombs away’, the battered B-17 was without a Bombardier. Only one man, gravely wounded, could save the mission.
The 305th Bomb Group, based at Chelveston in the UK, was one of four pioneer B-17 groups assigned to the Eighth Air Force. It was commanded by Col. Curtis E. LeMay, a tough, no-nonsense leader and a tactical genius. All the groups arrived in England without combat experience and faced a steep, perilous learning curve. They entered combat in the Autumn of 1942.
It was obvious to LeMay that two major deficiencies of the bomb groups were formation flying and air discipline. He experimented with various formations to give maximum mutual protection against enemy fighters. To improve bombing accuracy, he had all B-17s in a group formation drop on signal from the Bombardier of a select lead crew.
Because of the short range of escort fighters at that time, most early targets were in France or the Low Countries. The first penetration of German territory came on January 27, 1943, when LeMay’s group took part in an attack on the port of Wilhelmshaven. Then it was back to targets in German occupied western Europe for the most part.
On March 8, 1943, Eighth Air Force launched 67 B-17s, a large force for the time, against railyards at Rennes, 190 miles southwest of Paris, at the base of the Brittany peninsula. Sixteen of the B-17s were from the 305th Bomb Group. They suffered heavy fighter attacks before reaching the initial point to begin their bomb run.
One B-17 from the 305th’s 422nd Squadron, commanded by Lt. Albert Kuehl, bore the brunt of enemy attacks. It started its run with the No. 3 engine out, a fire in the radio compartment, and damage to the control cables and hydraulic system. The crew had been decimated by enemy fire. Both Waist Gunners, the Top Turret Gunner, and the Radio Operator were wounded. A head-on attack had critically wounded the Bombardier, Lieutenant Spatz, who lay unconscious over his bombsight. The Navigator, Lt. Raymond Rahner, was severely wounded in the thigh. Despite major damage to the aircraft, Lieutenant Kuehl was able to stay in formation on the bomb run with the help of co-pilot 2nd Lt. Floyd Truesdell, who had recently transferred from RAF Coastal Command and was on his first B-17 mission. The wounded Gunners all remained at their positions, but the crew was without a Bombardier.
Only minutes away from ‘bombs away’, Navigator Rahner, suffering from painful injuries, lifted the unconscious Bombardier from his bombsight and carried him to the rear of the nose compartment. He quickly applied compresses to stop the flow of blood and attached a walk-around oxygen bottle to the Bombardier’s mask.
The time to ‘bombs away’ now was measured in seconds. Unless someone replaced the incapacitated Bombardier, all the damage and suffering would be for naught. Only Lieutenant Rahner was in a position to do it. He resolved that their mission should not fail. He crawled painfully back to the Bombardier’s position, opened the bomb bay doors, released the bombs on signal from the Lead Bombardier, and buttoned up the doors. He then returned to Spatz’s side and continued first aid, undoubtedly saving the critically wounded man’s life.
As the formation turned off target, fighter attacks on the damaged B-17 resumed. Alternately manning the two guns in the nose, Lieutenant Rahner drove off several head-on attacks. One of the Waist Gunners, SSgt. T. E. Johnson, wounded by 20-mm fire in both legs, one shoulder, and his right eye, and with his electrically heated clothing inoperative; shot down a Bf-109 confirmed. A second Gunner, Sergeant Johns, probably downed another. Three more fighters were known to have been damaged.
Heading north over the comparative safety of the English Channel, sixty miles wide at that point, Lieutenants Kuehl and Truesdell could no longer keep the aircraft with the formation. Lieutenant Rahner left the nose guns long enough to give the Pilots a course to an RAF Base in England, where they landed safely.
The valiant men aboard that B-17 salvaged what almost certainly would have been a failed sortie, but for their heroism and teamwork. For his extraordinary performance as Navigator, Bombardier, Gunner and ‘Flight Surgeon’, Lt. Raymond Rahner was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Pilot Albert Kuehl received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Co-Pilot Floyd Truesdell the Air Medal. The Purple Heart went to all six wounded members of the crew. They had written an early chapter in the long and gallant history of the Eighth Air Force.
Thanks to George H. Collins for bringing this story to our attention.
Published September 1994
Floyd Truesdell’s early flying experiences with the RCAF, before serving time with RAF Coastal Command ultimately gaining experience in night flying, is what possibly led to his inclusion in the dropping of propaganda leaflets at night over occupied territory flying with the 305th. As a result of internet-based research, I have been able to collate several letters written by friends and people who knew Floyd, this provides an insight into his life and more importantly, how well liked and respected he was even at such a young age. See the following letter below:
G H Collins
R I. I, Box #1032
Niceville, Florida 32578
Floyd Harold Truesdell was my best friend. In 1937, when my family moved to Alaska, Floyd took me right under his wing. My dad worked for his dad on the Alaska railroad, and Floyd took it on himself to introduce me around, meet the girls, show me the High School, (the only one) I’d be going to, a ride around on his motor cycle and anything else he could think of. He was one of the most caring, thoughtful and generous people I’ve ever known.
His best friend, and later a good friend of mine, was Jack Harold Storm – a handsome devil (who also became a pilot) and a real hand with the gals. All of us having the same middle name, we soon became ‘The Three Musty Beers’. We all three, sooner or later, even went with the same gals.
In 1938, Floyd went outside to Washington State and Dad sent me outside to Puget Sound Naval Academy. Floyd and I met again a number of times in Seattle during that two years. He had a rickety old car and would drive up to see me and we’d go to a dance, drink beer or whatever.
Not long after that, he enlisted in the RCAF and got more flying training there – he had been flying while at Pullman. I don’t remember when he went to England with the RCAF, but he flew with the RAF too in Coastal Command, if I remember correctly. He saw plenty of combat with them plus night flying. I suppose that’s why the AAF later picked him to start the night flying training mission for the upcoming propaganda leaflet dropping over France and Germany.
Early in July 1943, he came to see me in a B-17. I don’t think it was Eager Eagle, but may have been. We went flying around England and came back to my Station (164) to land, made the approach … and it was the wrong field … easy to do … but it didn’t bother Floyd. Hauled the gear back up and away we went.
The next time I saw him, he came after me in an English ‘Oxford’ two-engine admin plane. We buzzed a couple of Englishmen on their bicycles, went to the south of England and returned a flare gun he had borrowed. As I left the plane on our return, I told him to take good care of himself and wished him good luck … he turned and said, and I’ll never forget this … ‘Hell, the Krauts haven’t made the bullet that will kill me’ … he was right …
I have intended to return to England over the years to visit friends, relatives and Floyd’s grave … So last winter I called graves registration in Washington DC and they informed me that Floyd isn’t buried in England but had been disinterred and buried in Phoenix, Arizona. So last summer on my annual trek to Colorado Springs, I came home via Phoenix and visited his grave in that city. He is buried alongside his mother and father. I don’t know when he was brought home. I have thought about him many times over the last 47 years, and missed him sorely, and wondered how different all our lives would have been had he made it. We lost a hellova fine friend when we lost Floyd.
George
Details of other crew members are gradually coming to light. On board the B-17 that fateful night was William Cullity, Navigator. Having been in touch with a distant family member in the USA, I was sent the following interesting newspaper clipping regarding him flying over his parents’ home as he left American for England:
The full article reads:
‘In the Spring of 1943, my great-uncle William Michael Cullity Jnr boarded a B-17 bomber bound for England and World War Two. Before leaving however, Uncle Billy wanted to bid his family farewell. And what a farewell it was! Last Thursday, as Memorial Day approached, my great-aunt Anne O’Neil recounted the tale from her kitchen table in Bedford. Just 5 years old at the time, she vividly recalls the morning her brother’s Eighth Army Air Force Unit left. ‘I remember my mother and father saying they were going to try to fly over our house … Then, all of a sudden, my father yelled ‘Here they come!’
Anne and her parents, William and Elizabeth Cullity, hustled down the back stairs of their home at 2 Park Ave, on Manchester’s west-side. Above them, the B-17 approached, flying low with its wings tipping to and fro as if to wave hello. ‘That’s how we knew it was him’, Anne said. As the bomber passed overhead, the family spotted an object falling from it. A small canvas pouch sewn to a gold cloth streamer landed about a block away on Winter Street. ‘A little boy found it and gave it to a policeman, and he brought it over to my mother and father’, Anne said. Addressed to ‘Mrs W. M. Cullity, 2 Parker Ave. City’, the pouch contained a note from Billy. ‘Dear Mom’, it read in part. ‘Just dropped by to say hello. We’re on our merry way. Fit as a fiddle and ready for anything … We’ll be back as soon as we take care of the little man with a mustache.’
Born in Manchester on July 2, 1921, Billy attended St Raphael’s Grammar School and graduated from St Joseph’s High School in 1938. Blue-eyed and curly-haired, he was an honors student whose poetry and essays graced the pages of the school’s bi-monthly literary magazine. A plumber’s apprentice before America entered the war, Billy enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces as an aviation cadet a month after Pearl Harbor. Trained as a B-17 Navigator, 2nd Lt. Cullity flew several missions over enemy territory after arriving in England. ‘You could count on his cool head and steady nerves to navigate through flak, fighter attacks and even through hell to reach his objective’ wrote Major Charles G. Y. Normand, a fellow Manchester soldier who served with Billy, in a letter home.
On August 31, 1943, Billy and 10 other crewmen boarded their B-17, nicknamed ‘Eager Eagle’ for a night training flight. Because there was a red air-raid alert on, they flew without navigation lights. At 11.30pm, the Eager Eagle collided with a Royal Air Force Beaufighter, also flying without lights, over the town of Foulsham on England’s southeast coast. In his letter, Maj. Normand wrote that the Beaufighter was returning from a night bombing mission. Nine Eager Eagle crew members, including 22-year-old Billy died that night. ‘Imagine going through hell and high water and coming out of it all without a scratch, then getting killed in a night practice mission’, Maj. Normand wrote. ‘It just doesn’t make sense, and I still have a hard time convincing myself that he is actually dead.’ On September 10, William and Elizabeth Cullity received a War Department telegram informing them of Billy’s death. At the time, two of their three younger sons were also serving their country. My grandfather, Private John Cullity, was a Marine stationed at Cherry Point, NC. His brother, Private Thomas Cullity, was in an Army coast artillery battalion in Berkeley, California. Both would later serve overseas – my grandfather in the Pacific and Uncle Tom in Europe, where he was a prisoner of war in Germany from Oct. 28, 1944, to May 1, 1945.
Five years after he went to war, Billy finally came home. Temporarily buried at the U.S. Military Cemetery in Brookwood, England, his remains arrived by train in Manchester in June 1948. After a funeral at St. Raphael’s Church attended by Mayor Josaphat T. Benoit and other city luminaries, he was buried at St. Joseph cemetery in Bedford.
At home last week, not far from Billy’s grave, Anne acknowledged that, as a girl, she didn’t grasp the gravity of her brother’s duty. ‘I didn’t think anything of war,’ she said. ‘My brothers were away, but they were coming home. As a kid, you don’t realise how serious it is.’
Although two Cullity brothers returned to raise families and live to an old age, Billy paid war’s ultimate price. But with his goodbye over Manchester, he gave his sister a parting gift she still treasures 66 years later. ‘It was quite thrilling,’ she said. ‘It’s something I’ll always remember.’
Another well documented crew member is Robert W. Barrell, Bombardier. He had survived uninjured aboard a plane known as ‘Old Bill’, made famous in the original black and white film following the last mission of The Memphis Belle filmed by The Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit. (Original film can be viewed, for those with a computer, on YouTube.)
Two of the crew from ‘Eager Eagle’ were fortunate to survive the collision. These were Waist Gunners John Breen, survivor from ‘Old Bill’, and Karl Ruehl (Rookie). As a result of the collision, the two Waist Gunners were able to make a good escape as they were close to the rear fuselage exit. John Breen had instructed the rookie Ruehl to jump. One of these two landed in a field and was not believed to be in the air long, indicating a low altitude at the time of their jump for survival. Both men were incredibly shaken by the events and unable to serve on active duty following this. It is well catalogued that Breen was requested to visit the men in the mortuary to identify his crew mate’s bodies which had been recovered, but was unable to carry out this request due to the bodies having been severely burnt.
This letter from John Breen was found in an old issue of ‘Can Do Notes’.
‘First, the ‘Old Bill’ episode May 15 ’43. We got shot up pretty bad over Germany. We dropped out of formation. All told we had the nose shot off, Hydraulic System shot out … Pilot and Co-Pilot were wounded. The Tail Gunner flew the plane over Europe ... We were repeatedly attacked by fighters. We got the Pilot and Co-Pilot revived. We found the English Channel and flew at about 50 feet off the water. A few German fighters followed. By that time, it was almost over. We threw out guns and anything else we could do to lighten the plane. Captain Whitson took over the plane and did a fantastic job getting us back to base and landing the plane. Myself and the Tail Gunner were the only ones not wounded. Everyone on board got medals.
With all that crew in hospital, I had to find a new crew. I had signed up to fly with Lt. Perkins. He was from Chicago. Just previous to that, I heard from your friend Truesdell he was looking for a crew. I talked to him because I heard he was a terrific Pilot and a nice fellow. Then I informed Lt. Perkins of my decision. I flew a few times with Floyd Truesdell, then they decided the 422nd was to do night stuff, half paper and half bombs. I heard that Lt. Perkins was shot down on his first mission.
We were notified by Floyd Truesdell that we were going to fly a practice mission. We had 13 on board, one just going along for the ride.
God was with me all the time I flew. On the way to the plane I stopped off at the Parachute Bldg. The Corporal told me it wasn’t there. That was hard to believe because I faithfully turned my chute in every time I flew. Anyway, I decided to go without it. After we were in the air, I turned on my flashlight and sure enough, it was near the Tail Gunner’s door. I always wore my chute even on practice runs. It was quite dark that night. I went into the radio room for a smoke. Then I went to my right Waist Gun position. There was a terrific crash. I got knocked down. But not hurt. I looked out my window and the entire right side of the plane was missing; the wing and two engines. The kid (C. Rhuel) who was on the left Waist had never been on a mission. I hollered at him to bail out. I blew the door off and jumped. All this happened in about ten seconds. They found me in a farm yard.
I did not know until the next day, when a British Officer came into the RAF Hospital and told me there had been a mid-air collision. We were at 7,000 feet when it happened. The bodies, I was told, were burned beyond recognition. They asked me to go to the hangar where the bodies were. I couldn’t do it. The other Waist Gunner must have fallen out of the plane. They found him unconscious. The doctors asked me to try and talk with him. He came to immediately. They flew a plane down to pick me up. As far as Rhuel was concerned, they sent him away and I never saw him again. I got sent home several months later. I swear to this day that I owe my life to the pilot, Floyd Truesdell.'
The following document was written by MacKinlay Kantor. Kantor was an American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He wrote more than 30 novels along with ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ aka ‘Glory for Me’, Robert E. Sherwood; then adapted it as a screenplay winning seven academy awards. Kantor reported from London as a War Correspondent for a Los Angeles newspaper ‘The Saturday Evening Post’. After flying with some bombing missions, he asked for and received training to operate the Bomber’s turret machine guns, although he was not in Service and this violated regulations. It is around this time that he must have written the following:
THE DRINKS WERE ON TRUESDELL
A lot of the fellows had some drinks up here at Thornhill (Chelveston) the other night. The drinks were on Truesdell, but it happened that he wasn’t here to join in.
Floyd Truesdell
Let me explain about Thornhill: the place isn’t real. Neither are the names of Barnwell and Mugley and Hepworth – all USAAF bomber bases scattered throughout nearby countryside. That’s the set-up in this Wing of the Eighth Air Force Bomber Command. You take the train from London and come to a good-sized city which we shall call Cartside. From Cartside, you travel by jeep or command car or truck to any of the fields occupied by different B-17 Groups where hard runways stretch solid above the bones of forgotten Saxons or the dust of sleeping Druids.
Thornhill has been a kind of second home to me ever since I landed in England months ago. I have flown with the Thornhill boys, and dined with them, and slept with them; and I have seen them die, and can report that they die very well indeed.
That’s the way True died. It was a while ago, so now they will allow me to tell you his real name: 1st Lt. Floyd H. Truesdell. He came from Anchorage, Alaska, of all places. Guess he was the first person most of us ever knew to come from Alaska. He used to operate a bulldozer before he went into the Service; and most of us never knew a bulldozer operator before, either. True was a swell pilot and a swell boy. He lived in the same barracks with Bailey and Greene and Webb and Foxy and Dris and Spring; that last building, clear out on the end site, next to the barley field. The barley is all gathered now, but it used to be tall and green, and later on it was tall and yellow.
English Land Army girls worked in the fields, harvesting, and the boys used to ‘Hoo-hoo’ at them through the fence. Quite a number of the fellows around here who grew up in North Dakota or Kansas or places like that – they went to work at odd times in the harvest fields, and had a lot of fun imagining that they were shocking wheat back home. I don’t think True shocked any wheat, but he used to shock the daylights out of the RAF with his skill and his jauntiness when he took to the air. He was one of the few Americans at Thornhill who was privileged to wear embroidered RAF Wings on his blouse, opposite the stiff silver Wings of the U.S. Pilot. Yesterday, I heard a Sergeant swearing to some newcomer that Truesdell had forgotten more about flying than that newcomer would ever know.
Anyway, he was killed last month; and something shrill and bright and important departed from the simple night life at the Officers’ Club when True didn’t come sauntering up to the bar any longer. The boys have fun at the bar. They don’t drink enough to float a battleship – there isn’t that much to be had, usually – but they play ping pong between drinks, and there are some slot machines (the profits go to a fund for occasional parties) and a good time is had by all.
Well, one of the fellows was going through the drawers of the old battered bureau in Truesdell’s room and he found six pounds there: English pounds of sterling, all folded up. Truesdell had left instructions about what he wanted done with that six pounds. He wanted the boys of the Squadron to go over to the Club and have drinks on him. So, they waited until Major Price got back to Thornhill (he is the Squadron Commander, and was on Leave) and then everybody went over to the Club and had drinks. Some took beer and some whiskey. Rum and coke too: that’s about the most popular drink at Thornhill. And a few just had coke, because there are some Army fellows who don’t drink liquor because they have promised somebody that they won’t, or maybe just because they don’t drink liquor. It doesn’t matter either way, whether you drink or whether you don’t – that’s our own business. It was pretty nice of True to save that six pounds (twenty-four U.S. dollars) in his bureau drawer. Everybody had several drinks, because six pounds will buy a lot. Cokes or rum; both are cheap at Thornhill. Life is a little cheap over here, too, these days. But there was nothing cheap about Truesdell. Everybody around Thornhill feels that war is pretty expensive when it keeps demanding nice guys like True, and doesn’t give any of them back in change. That is the way we buy liberty today. Liberty is expensive; sometimes it costs more than six pounds Sterling. Everybody was glad to have a drink on 1st Lt. Floyd H. Truesdell, age 24, of Anchorage, Alaska. That was what he wanted them to do with his six pounds.
MacKinlay Kantor
Also on board the B-17 was Flying Officer E. M. Appleton, an RAF Pilot experienced in night flying, although he had lost all his crew, except his Wireless Operator, whilst piloting a Stirling flying with 75 (NZ) Squadron. On that night, they were heading for a night raid on Duisburg when the starboard engine failed on take-off from RAF Newmarket, Suffolk. The plane struck the Devils Dyke or Devil’s Ditch, a significant linear earthen barrier thought to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, situated in eastern Cambridgeshire. It runs in an almost straight line from Woodditton south of Newmarket to Reach, north-west of Newmarket. On recovery, he was assigned to the 422nd for night flying observation duties. I believe that the B-17 was also one of only a few within the 305th which flew at night. The task at this time was for night leaflet dropping over occupied territory, although at the time of the collision, they were on a training flight from Chelverston across North Norfolk back to Chelverston AAF Station 105.
Beaufighter – RAF
Flying Officer Frederick Neil Robertson and Flying Officer Ernest Dye were again both extremely qualified and respected Pilot and Observer/Aerial Gunner, both served in the defense of our country during the Battle of Britain. These two men were also killed in the collision on 31 August 1943 whilst flying an RAF night-flying Beaufighter.
Back in October 1939, Robertson was posted to 66 Squadron at Duxford. Over Dunkirk on 2 June 1940, he destroyed a Ju88. Immediately after, his Spitfire was hit by flak, making it uncontrollable. Robertson bailed out, landing on a beach, five miles west of Dunkirk, and managing to get on one of the last boats to leave. By 6 August 1940, he was flying Hurricanes in the relief of Malta, flying off HMS Argus whilst in ‘B’ Flight, 261 Squadron. During this period, he was accredited with several other enemy kills. This is an account of aerial combat as written at that time by Robertson:
‘I was Pink 2 and on patrol with Pink 1 when we sighted the enemy formation coming in over Gozo at about 19,000 feet. Pink 1 peeled off and attacked the S.79, leading the formation. I followed him down about fifteen seconds later, but was attacked by the CR.42s which were above and behind the S.79. I gave one a good deflection burst as he was turning, causing him to spin. I watched him partially recover, but he continued to lose height in a spiral dive until I finally lost sight of him just before he crashed.’
He was later reported shot down after his Hurricane V7495 was hit and set on fire, once again parachuting to safety, landing in a field near RAF Luqa, Malta. He eventually returned to England via Cairo some time in 1941, eventually teaming up with Flying Officer Dye DFM on night fighters based at 96 Squadron at Honiley.
Robertson is buried at Cambridge City Cemetery. His gravestone reads: ‘God overrules all accidents and makes them serviceable to His Purpose’. Dye is buried in Cambois (St Peter) New Burial Ground, United Kingdom.
The Collision at Foulsham
The official AAF Crash Report states that the Beaufighter was returning from an intruder alert. Both aircraft were flying without navigational lights as they were above 5,000 feet. As a result of the Beaufighter making a steep turn, it collided with the B-17 on its flight path at around 7,000 feet. The resulting crash severed the wing and tore away two engines from the Fortress, as witnessed by Breen (Eager Eagle’s Waist Gunner). The force of this collision broke the Beaufighter in half. The remains of the B-17 smashed into two trees, before crashing into Church Farm; whereupon it was engulfed in an inferno of aviation fuel. A small piece of the airframe remains in one of the trees to this day. The Beaufighter crashed in open farmland east of Church Farm, fragments of both aircraft were scattered over at least 3 square miles around Foulsham.
A further tree was smashed on the point of entry into the farm buildings and I was told the fuselage was seen to lie partially across the road by a young lad called Len Barham. He remembered the fire hoses being trailed across the road to douse the fire. A local Police Sergeant, believed to be Sgt. Sampson, was awarded a commendation for his effort in rescuing animals from the burning farm buildings.
The official Accident Report concludes that, as both aircraft were flying above 5,000 feet without navigation lights during an air raid alert, the collision was unavoidable.
The dead crew members from Eager Eagle were taken for burial to Brook Wood Cemetery near London. After the war, eight of the bodies were exhumed and flown back to various private burials within the USA where they now lay at rest.
Site investigations and research over the past 27 years collating information available via many links and articles on the internet has enabled me to collate the history of this incident. Without this source, I would not have been able to bring this story to life. This is only one story of many similar thousands across the UK which, to date, have had little exposure or recognition of the sacrifice paid by such young crew members in the defense of our country.
As a result of attending previous Reunions with RAF 100 Group here in Foulsham, I am most grateful to Janine Harrington for being given the chance to dedicate a plaque to all crew members at the crash site at Church Farm. This would not have been possible without the help and funding from Foulsham Community Archive, or the current owners of the barn and Church Farm. Also, a special thanks to Warrant Officer Mo Howard and his colleagues representing the RAF. I am also greatly indebted to the personal interest taken in my research by Col. Tom Moore and his kind offer of assistance in making copies of the original crash report available to aid further research. My thanks must go also to Tom’s colleagues who were present at the Reunion, bringing RAF 100 Group Association together with both veterans of the U.S. 36th Bomb Squadron, and the presentday U.S. 36th Electronic Warfare Squadron, 8th Air Force.
Footnote:
On the Friday of RAF 100 Group Association’s Reunion weekend, I finally managed to arrange a meeting with a gentleman now in his later years who, as a boy, came across the body of one of the crewmen whilst bringing in a horse from the adjacent meadow to where the Beaufighter crashed. For years, he believed this to be one of the crewmen from Eager Eagle. However, from his description of a blue uniform and the location of the body, I believe this to be either Fredric Neil Robertson or Ernest Dye from the Beaufighter. He also reported finding a rubberized torch nearby, which he wishes he had kept as it was likely to have come from the same plane.
After 27 years of research, this story is far from complete as I still have several of the crew member’s lives and Service history to trace. The internet has been a major source of information and a direct link to two relatives of Eager Eagles crew. I hope further family members will eventually make contact so the true history of these men’s sacrifice is recorded for future generations.
by Richard Ravencroft
This article is from the Autumn 2017 issue of Confound and Destroy
