A service in Wednesfield remembered a Lancaster bomber that crashed there killing all its young crew. Members of the crews family attended, and later in the day there was due to be a Lancaster fly over.
00:30We came to live in Wentzfield and I went to what was Wentzfield Grammar School, now Wentzfield
00:51Academy, just a few hundred yards from this point.
00:56Where this memorial stands was on the route of the school cross-country run, and it was
01:01just here that we had to navigate a stream in all weathers.
01:06There was no memorial here, and I had no idea of what happened here those years earlier.
01:13I never heard anyone talk of the fateful crash, but of course there would have been loads around
01:19who witnessed it.
01:20But over time, it faded from public memory, and was kept in the pockets of individual
01:27memory, and of course for some, for the family members of the field, it would leave an indelible
01:34mark of tragedy and loss, and many years of grief.
01:38I'm sad to it, I didn't know this story, we almost lost it, but thanks to the keepers
01:45of those memories, we are here today.
01:49In Joshua, at reading, Joshua asks representatives for the tribes of Israel to place stones
01:56as a lasting memorial, and this passage speaks powerfully to me of what remembrance is about.
02:04And I'm so happy the turnout has been phenomenal.
02:11I think I can muster the volumes to just give thanks at this remarkable event.
02:20It is humbling to see so many of the community come out at this lasting memorial to give our
02:31thanks to the families for the sacrifice of the young men who, let's not forget, they were
02:40aged just between 20 and 24.
02:45So we've got family here representing young servicemen that were lost.
02:50Who do you represent, madam?
02:52Ronald O'Donnell, who's a flight engineer.
02:54And he was your uncle?
02:55Great uncle.
02:56Great uncle.
02:57And this is your brother Chris?
02:58Yep.
02:59So you've come from where today?
03:00We've come from Northampton and Mansfield, but Ronald was from Plymouth.
03:04How was he?
03:05Originally from Plymouth.
03:06Okay, yeah.
03:07And Barry, who are you representing?
03:10Who was your relative?
03:13Your relative, Victor.
03:15So Victor was your dad?
03:16My father, yeah.
03:17Yeah, yeah.
03:18So, you were, we were having a little chat off camera, your mother was three months pregnant
03:23with you.
03:24Okay.
03:25Your mother was three months pregnant with you, wasn't she?
03:28Yeah.
03:29When he lost his life?
03:30Yeah.
03:31Yeah?
03:32So what's, how do you feel being here today?
03:35Very difficult to explain.
03:37Yeah.
03:38Very sad.
03:39Yeah.
03:40Everybody else was celebrating VE Day and it was very much hot and cold, wasn't it?
03:45Yeah.
03:46Because we know a week later what would have happened.
03:49Yeah, yeah.
03:50And, er, I know, or my father and I expect this good lady's father went home on VE Day.
03:57Yeah.
03:58Then got VE Day.
04:00And then, I don't remember, were they called up?
04:03Well, my father's got VE on the voluntary reserve.
04:07Did he have to go back?
04:08They were told, yeah, to go back.
04:13So he had to go back for training, as I think my father was, your father was a pilot, and I think my father was a bomb aimer, and he was teaching the others, radar.
04:30Oh, hang on.
04:33And that's what they were learning from that day.
04:35See, it's so important, isn't it, to, you know, keep these memories alive, really, because, you know, we think we're dead secure, and this won't happen again, but, you know, we never know what's around the corner.
04:47Madam, you represent a different serviceman. Who was that you represent?
04:52Bernard Hall, my father.
04:54Your father, yeah.
04:55Yeah.
04:56So what's, how's it kind of been during your lifetime? Has there been, have you, has there been efforts to keep his memory alive, or has it kind of,
05:05Yeah, because that's how it is a lot of the time, isn't it? It's just not mentioned.
05:09When I was nine.
05:10Yeah.
05:10So all of that wasn't talked about at all.
05:13Yeah, yeah.
05:14And it's only since, sort of, what, 2010?
05:19Yeah.
05:20And 15, that things have been, you know, around.
05:23Yeah, yeah, yeah. And where is it you've come from yourself today?
05:27To Weatherby.
05:28Weatherby, wow, yeah.
05:30And is it heartening to see the community of Wentzfield kind of remembering?
05:34Oh, yeah.
05:35Yeah? You'd second that, yeah?
05:37Yeah.
05:37Yeah.
05:38Well, thank you for, thank you for sharing your thoughts and memories with us today. Thank you, guys.
05:44It was Plymouth your family were from then, so, Ronnie.
05:47Yep.
05:48And, erm, so he came back at the end of the war, he would just, what was the story?
05:52Came and celebrated the day on Plymouth High with his family, his brothers and sisters,
05:56and sisters and brother and mum, and told his mum, my great-grand, that, don't worry, mum,
06:02I've got through the war, I'm safe, I'll be home soon.
06:04Yeah.
06:05Well, then it was called back and the crash happened, so my nan never recovered.
06:08Yeah, I couldn't believe it, yeah.
06:10So her, it was just, yeah, never the same after that.
06:14My gran carried, my great-grand carried a bag in her handbag the whole of her life, rest of her life,
06:19with the burnt paper remains that was recovered from him, the crash.
06:24And then it was passed on to my nan.
06:25Yeah.
06:25And my nan carried it until her death, and then when my nan died, we put it in my nan's coffin for my nan to take me.
06:30Oh, wow.
06:30Because it was her little brother.
06:32Wow.
06:32God, I mean, you forget, don't you? I mean, just when you look at the ages.
06:36That's so, yeah.
06:36And you think, you know, a gang of, you know, 20, 21, 23, and I just, I struggle to imagine,
06:44a lot of the young men of that age these days being able to, you know, take that weight of responsibility
06:53and fly in a Lancaster on their shoulders.
06:55My nephew now, who would be Ronnie's great-great-nephew, is currently at Sandhurst doing his officer training,
07:00going into the Royal Logistics Corps.
07:02And my brother went in the army, so it's got a tradition of military service.
07:07Yeah, yeah.
07:08That was carried through.
07:52To sing with heart and voice, God's Saviour King.
08:01Not on this land alone, we keep God's mercy known from shore to shore.
08:14Lord, make the nations see that men should rather be, and for one family, the world of all.
