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Wednesfield set to remember Lancaster Bomber Crash

Wednesfield History Society announces remembrance service and plans for memorial to fallen WW2 airmen.

Wednesfield History Society announces remembrance service and plans for memorial to fallen WW2 airmen.

Wednesfield History Society is inviting members of the public to attend an informal service of remembrance on Sunday 17th May to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Lancaster Bomber crash which claimed the lives of 7 young servicemen.

Local residents are invited to attend the service given by Rev’d Nick Watson of St Thomas Church at the crash site on “Allard’s Fields”, Lichfield Road (opposite Moat House Lane East) from 5pm.

Permanent Memorial

The service coincides with the launch of Wednesfield History Society’s campaign to secure funding for a permanent memorial in tribute to the crew of the Lancaster. The airmen who were based in East Kirkby, Lincolnshire are thought to be the only servicemen killed in Wolverhampton during WW2.

About The Crash

Lancaster Crew1
6 of the 7 man crew who were killed – all of whom were in their early twenties.

 

The Lancaster aircraft had been on a routine training flight when it began losing altitude and crashed on 17th May, 1945 at approx 5:15pm. The tragic accident occurred just 9 days after VE day and left a 5ft crater in Lichfield Road with wreckage strewn over two miles away.

In May 2005 (60 years after the crash) a memorial service was held at St Thomas’ Church in Wednesfield and the crew’s relatives lit candles in memory of their lost loved ones.

 

For more information, please contact:

Simon Hamilton, Wednesfield History Society
Tel: 07814 549 416
Email: s_m_hamilton@hotmail.com

Photo credit: dazecoop

4 replies on “Wednesfield set to remember Lancaster Bomber Crash”

East Kirkby former RAF Station is now home of Lincs Aviation Heritage Centre,and has a Lancaster like the one that crashed and taxis regularly,if anyone should want to see it for themselves to understand just what it would be like,also,there are the crew members names listed on the walls of the airman’s chapel there,it’s well worth a visit as it is on a WW2 airfield with the control tower intact where this crew were stationed,and flew from from on that fateful day. I visit there times each year,there is lots to see to understand how things were at the time.

I was almost 5 years old and live at 64 Lawfred Avenue on that fateful day.I heard the the low flying Lancaser and looked out the window at the top of the stairs. I recollect seeing smoke from the starboard engines .It came over the Tube Works then flew over Lewises farm fields and crashed at a right angle in to the Lichfield Rd. One engine did survive and was crated up and left in the school yard of Lichfield Secondary Modern school until 1954 when a RAF truck and crane came and took it away. The crew that picked it up told us kids what was in the crate with RAF markings on it.

On that fateful day I heard, then saw the Lancaster bomber known to all of us war kids by the sound of its engines, from our our upstairs window, at 62 Lawfred Avenue. It flew passed the end of our street heading across the fields, of Lewises farm heading towards the Lichfield road. Our street gang of kids ran down the street turned left at the shop and across the parking lot of the Falcon pub,crossed the Willenhall road and over the fence and across the fields. We had seen the the black pall of smoke rising and heard the explosion. Nine years later at the Secondary modern school an RAF truck with a crane came and took away the big wooden crate from the school yard with the one surviving engine in it. We were told that’s what it was .

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