Tragedy strikes again
Only a day after the crash at Lodge Park, another dramatic event took place above it when a German Heinkel 111 launched an attack on RAF Windrush itself.
Having reached the skies over England during the evening, dozens of German bombers lurked through the darkness that night seeking airfields and other priority targets in the south of England.
It was the 18 August – regarded as the “Hardest Day” of the Battle of Britain. On this night, Sergeant Pilot Bruce Hancock was in another Avro Anson for his final solo night flight before qualifying as a full pilot. As this was a training flight, his aircraft was unarmed. When the Heinkel was above the airfield – lit up in the darkness by its flarepath – it unleashed its payload of ten 50kg bombs. Mercifully, these fell wide of their mark and caused no damage. But with the airfield behind it, the airmen inside the Heinkel spotted another target – Sergeant Pilot Bruce Hancock’s Avro Anson.
An unsolved mystery
What happened next will never be known with absolute certainty but from what Sergeant Pilot Hancock was reported to have said to his brother-in-law – that he would be willing to “deliberately ram an enemy aircraft” if necessary – we can surmise the thinking that led to what happened next.
Observers on the ground recorded that the Heinkel made straight for the unarmed Anson and its front gunner opened fire. The Anson’s landing lights were seen to switch off, which would have rendered the aircraft almost invisible in the darkness. Sergeant Hancock then appeared to deliberately slow his plane, allowing the Heinkel to overfly him. At the crucial moment, the Anson climbed, colliding with the underside of the German aircraft and sending both machines – and all the men inside them – hurtling towards the ground. There were no survivors.
Sergeant Pilot Bruce Hancock and the four German airmen who lost their lives – Oberfeldwebel Alfred Dreh, Unteroffizier Richard Schmidt, Unteroffizier Herbert Rave, Unteroffizier Ewald Cohrs – came down in their aircraft at Blackpitts Farm near the village of Aldsworth, a stone’s throw from Lodge Park.
Two plaques – one at Windrush church, the other at the Watch Office that still stands at Windrush Airfield – commemorate this event, which took place eighty years ago.
These events, though they happened many decades ago, are remembered in the debt of gratitude owed to the people involved by all who have come later.