In Memory Australian Pilot William Searle Vale and Flight Lieutenant Alfred Edward David Ashcroft
Flight Lieutenant Alfred Edward David Ashcroft, 24, (seen left) Navigator and Wireless Operator from Surrey; was killed alongside Australian Pilot William Searle Vale, 27, when their Mosquito came down in a field near Drieslinter on 6 October 1944. They were returning to RAF Swannington, Norfolk, after a raid on Bremen and Dortmund in Germany. Alfred Ashcroft’s medals were sent to his mother in a small box complete with a letter from the King.
A few months earlier, American Pilot Olger Ivan Aal, 21, was killed when his Thunderbolt aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft guns while strafing a German airfield in nearby Melkwezer.
The sacrifice of these three airmen fighting to free people from German occupation touched the hearts of villagers so much that they are remembered still decades later.
Relatives of Flt/Lt Alfred Edward David Ashcroft were traced after an appeal by the Sunday Express, a newspaper approached for help by the Belgian authorities who contacted welfare charity SSAFA, formerly known as Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association. They had been struggling to trace relatives of Mr Ashcroft until a story was published in February and Wing Commander David Bramley from the Surrey Branch of SSAFA was contacted, allowing him to get in touch with a niece, Carolyn Mason, of North Devon, and a cousin, Chris Toase from Gloucestershire. Officials in Linter, the new name given to seven villages including Drieslinter in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, desperately needed to trace relatives of the war heroes to invite them to attend an unveiling of a plaque honouring them.
The family of Mr Vale were easy to find. They still owned the family farm where he’d lived in Picola, north of Victoria. Relatives of Mr Aal were also quickly traced in Washington, Minnesota and North Dakota.
It was an emotional moment as relatives of the three wartime heroes gathered for the unveiling of the plaque. Mrs Mason said: ‘My uncle, who I never met, feels so much more real to me after coming here. Before, I just had a few bits of paper and some medals in a box. Now I feel closer to him I can fully understand his story.’
Australian Grace Harding, whose brother William Searle Vale died in the crash.
‘Seeing the plaque for the first time with Grace standing by my side felt right, as that was how Alfred and William were when they flew together … and died.’
Mr Ashcroft had joined the RAF as a trainee Pilot in April 1939, but became an Air Gunner, forming a successful partnership with Battle of Britain ace: Squadron Leader Edward Wolfe, which gained him a Commission and a Distinguished Flying Cross.
After retraining as a Navigator and Wireless Operator for the RAF’s new Mosquito aircraft, he flew 95 operational and training flights with Mr Vale.
Mrs Mason said she had to sit down when she heard of the plans for a Memorial after all these years. ‘It was very touching and humbling to find so many people in this village still care about what, for us, had been a family tragedy.’
Mrs Harding, 82, of Nithalia, Victoria, said: ‘I still remember the day we got the telegram saying he was missing in action and the next day another one saying his plane had crashed’.
Lisette Wouters, of Linter Remembrance Group, said: ‘We are very proud that the families of the three airmen are all here today’.
This article is from the Autumn 2015 issue of Confound and Destroy
