The price of freedom
I
t was hazy and warm, and soft grey
clouds hung heavy with rain over the
Thames Estuary as a fl otilla of three rowing
gigs, a trawler and a motor launch, all sat
bobbing in the slight swell as Father Neil
Dalley asked for a minute’s silence.
We were stationed over the sunken
remains of Heavenly Body II, a
USAF Flying Fortress bomber that had crashed into
the Thames exactly 75 years ago to the day in much
the same weather conditions.
The minute over, we raised our caps and scattered
poppies into the now ebbing tide, to the memory
of 11 American airmen whose B17s were shot up by
ground forces as they attacked a V1 bomb site near
Calais in France at the tail end of
World War II.
Limping home to Kimbolton
Airfi eld near Huntingdon, one of
the damaged bombers, Aircraft
44-6133 (unlike Heavenly Body II
she was given no nickname) had
started to malfunction and
suddenly dropped out of the sky on top of Heavenly
Body II before breaking up and crashing onto the
mudfl ats at Allhallows in Kent. Only one of her nine
crew survived, being thrown from the plane as it broke
up and parachuting to safety. The others couldn’t get
out as the impact had jammed all exit doors.
Earlier in the day we had also rendezvoused out close
to the shipping lanes to remember the aircrew of this,
the fi rst bomber to crash.
Heavenly Body II, now badly damaged herself, fl ew
on and what happened next was witnessed by Dennis
Hill, then 14 years old, now an 89-year-old lifelong
sailor, and former owner of the Colchester smack,
Emma, who was with the remembrance party.
‘The plane was obviously in trouble with smoke
coming from her port inboard engine. I saw six or so
parachutes come out of the aircraft, which was obviously
still under command. It disappeared under the tree line
and was heading straight for the heavily populated
Canvey Island’s massive oil refi nery fuel tanks.
Suddenly it reappeared and had turned round and
was fl ying back out into the river before it pancaked
off Canvey Point. It was a terrifi c bit of airmanship.
I realised, even at that young age, I had witnessed
something dreadful.’
Thirty-fi ve of us who sail the river and whose craft
pass over the remains of this fatal collision on every tide,
had come to pay our respects and they included skipper
of the motor launch, Calypso, Steve O’Connell, a
61-year-old trans-ocean yacht delivery skipper; Clive
Brumage, 56, waterman and owner of the 36ft Dutch
sloop Hoog Springer and Phil Boyce, 50-year-old
former dinghy racing champ and Tall Ship sailor.
The moving ceremony was fi lmed by a BBC TV
news camera team organised
by yachtsman and oarsman
Ron Sverdloff, who commanded
his three pulling gigs, Spirit of
Dunkirk, Spirit of Trafalgar and
Victory to carry Father Neil to
the hallowed spot.
Aboard the trawler Charlie Boy
were relatives of the lost airmen.
Father Neil, whose church St Clements, at Leigh-on-
Sea, sports a memorial to Little Ship sailors who lost
their lives at Dunkirk, said: ‘As we pray for their souls
and all those affected by war, let us also pray for peace
throughout the world.’
As we bobbed on the grey tide, Father Neil also named
those lost: Armand Ramacitti; William Hager; Donald
Watson; Richard Ritter; Cecil Tognazzi; John Burke;
Warren Oaks; Paul Haynes; Fred Kaufman; Edward
Sadler; Louis Schulte.
They had been protecting our forbears from what we
would now call a drone attack. During 1944 more than
8,000 V1s, aka doodlebugs, pilot-less, fl ying bombs,
were unleashed on London, one of those landed on
Canvey Island, just one month after the collision, killing
two adults and two children.
Ron put it simply for all of us: ‘We enjoy every day of
our lives because of these guys.’We w ho s a i l t he
river had come to
pay our respects
COLUMNDICK
DURHAM