During the late afternoon of
August 16, 1940, I was a soldier on leave going for a walk over the Downs,
when, as I came to the end of Honeysuckle Lane where it joins a small,
sloping field, I heard the great noise of a very low-flying plane, midst
much machine-gun firing.
Suddenly, as I flung myself into a hedge, a Heinkel 111
bomber flew just a few feet over my head and landed very heavily in the
next field. There were no other people about as I rushed to
the plane to help two badly wounded members of the crew out, but a few
minutes later a few British soldiers, who were manning an observation post
further up the hill, appeared and took the German crew and myself prison.
They had presumed I was part of the crew, although I was
in civilian clothing, as I was in the plane and talking to them in German,
which I speak quite well (I had spent the previous year with a
German-speaking family in Poland).
I was unable to convince the soldiers that I was a local
man, so they locked me in the ambulance with the German airmen (two dead,
two wounded and one unhurt) and took us to Worthing Hospital, and then
myself to the police station, where I was interrogated and finally driven
home.
Throughout the ordeal, I was very impressed by the
calmness of the German officer, whom I presumed to be the pilot.
He first asked where they were, then could I give him a
cigarette and finally, would I retrieve his cap which he had left in the
cockpit, as he thought it unlikely he would be able to obtain a
replacement for a while!
However, he bitterly complained that it was very
un-British for the fighter planes to have continued pumping bullets,
killing two of his men, just as his plane was crashing.
Some days later, I was allowed to visit the two wounded
German airmen, now in Worthing Hospital, and took them some cigarettes and
sweets, much to the disgust of the other patients in the ward!
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