Centaurus
20th Feb 2016, 10:59
Today I bought Britain at War magazine, December 2015, Issue 104. Pages 6 and 7 had a story called Dramatic Bomb find in Kentish wood. It was about the recent discovery of a small bomb at Castle Hill Wood just to the south of Tonbridge. The position of the bomb was at the site of a USAAF Thunderbolt fighter aircraft that crashed after a mid-air collision with another Thunderbolt on 10 June 1944.
Edited extracts from this story read as follows:
The bomb discovery was reportedly associated with aircraft wreckage of a USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt, just to the south of Tonbridge The wood runs alongside the busy A21 London to Hastings road with the discovery only a matter of a few hundred yards from the carriageway.
The P-47 in question was an aircraft of the Duxford based 78th Fighter Group (83rd Fighter Squadron) part of `Blue Flight` and was on a combat mission to targets in Normandy on June 10 1944, when it collided with another P-47 of the unit. On that operation, 2nd Lt Francis Kochanek was flying in the No. 3 position on the right wing of 1st Lt William Mcdermott, when the formation entered 10/10ths overcast which resulted in the pilots having difficulty retaining visual contact. Separated from the rest of his formation, Kochanek advanced his throttle and took a heading away from McDermott last known position. Suddenly, Kochanek noticed a dark shadow under his left wing, pulled up to avoid it and collided with McDermotts aircraft.
Francis Kochanek was able to escape from his crippled fighter (42-76510, HL-M) although McDermott (flying 46-26053, HL-E) was killed in the accident. It is believed that the recent discovery (of the bomb) is associated with McDermotts Thunderbolt.
In 2009, this scribe wrote a book Tall Tails of the South Pacific. The opening chapter described my experiences as a school boy in Tonbridge, Kent during WW2. Page 15 of that book included the following paragraphs:
Quote: There was one more incident which I remember clearly. With the inevitable English wet weather, most aircraft passing overhead were unseen. One morning as I was being press-ganged into weeding the garden, I heard the sound of two single engine aircraft in cloud. Suddenly there was the sound of an aircraft in a high speed dive, its engine screaming at full throttle. I had heard the sound on several occasions during the Battle of Britain and it always signified an aircraft out of control.
From the base of the cloud came an American Thunderbolt fighter in a full spin, and minus one wing. It was in flames and going down vertically, it crashed into a heavily timbered area half a mile away and blew up. Another explosion was heard some distance away where a second aircraft had also crashed. The smoke trail from the first aircraft was still lingering below the clouds, when I saw a white parachute drifting towards the nearby hospital. That pilot was from the second Thunderbolt and he survived. The other pilot was killed.
It was a 20 minute bike ride to the still burning crash site of the spinning Thunderbolt. An ambulance passed me going away from the crash. After battling through gorse bushes and scrub, I came across the still smouldering wreckage spread far and wide among scorched trees. Several loud bangs indicated live ammunition was being cooked off, and I decided it was too dangerous to hang around. I lost my yen for souvenirs after seeing that grim sight. A few more spectators had arrived, but they kept a respectable distance from the wreckage, which eventually burnt itself out.
It was the first time I had actually seen a burnt out aeroplane, and it left me with an uneasy feeling of sadness and foreboding." Unquote.
Reading those pages of `Britain at War` brought back the memory of that tragedy so clearly. It was by sheer chance I bought the magazine and an amazing coincidence I was probably one of the few people alive today who saw it happen first hand.
Edited extracts from this story read as follows:
The bomb discovery was reportedly associated with aircraft wreckage of a USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt, just to the south of Tonbridge The wood runs alongside the busy A21 London to Hastings road with the discovery only a matter of a few hundred yards from the carriageway.
The P-47 in question was an aircraft of the Duxford based 78th Fighter Group (83rd Fighter Squadron) part of `Blue Flight` and was on a combat mission to targets in Normandy on June 10 1944, when it collided with another P-47 of the unit. On that operation, 2nd Lt Francis Kochanek was flying in the No. 3 position on the right wing of 1st Lt William Mcdermott, when the formation entered 10/10ths overcast which resulted in the pilots having difficulty retaining visual contact. Separated from the rest of his formation, Kochanek advanced his throttle and took a heading away from McDermott last known position. Suddenly, Kochanek noticed a dark shadow under his left wing, pulled up to avoid it and collided with McDermotts aircraft.
Francis Kochanek was able to escape from his crippled fighter (42-76510, HL-M) although McDermott (flying 46-26053, HL-E) was killed in the accident. It is believed that the recent discovery (of the bomb) is associated with McDermotts Thunderbolt.
In 2009, this scribe wrote a book Tall Tails of the South Pacific. The opening chapter described my experiences as a school boy in Tonbridge, Kent during WW2. Page 15 of that book included the following paragraphs:
Quote: There was one more incident which I remember clearly. With the inevitable English wet weather, most aircraft passing overhead were unseen. One morning as I was being press-ganged into weeding the garden, I heard the sound of two single engine aircraft in cloud. Suddenly there was the sound of an aircraft in a high speed dive, its engine screaming at full throttle. I had heard the sound on several occasions during the Battle of Britain and it always signified an aircraft out of control.
From the base of the cloud came an American Thunderbolt fighter in a full spin, and minus one wing. It was in flames and going down vertically, it crashed into a heavily timbered area half a mile away and blew up. Another explosion was heard some distance away where a second aircraft had also crashed. The smoke trail from the first aircraft was still lingering below the clouds, when I saw a white parachute drifting towards the nearby hospital. That pilot was from the second Thunderbolt and he survived. The other pilot was killed.
It was a 20 minute bike ride to the still burning crash site of the spinning Thunderbolt. An ambulance passed me going away from the crash. After battling through gorse bushes and scrub, I came across the still smouldering wreckage spread far and wide among scorched trees. Several loud bangs indicated live ammunition was being cooked off, and I decided it was too dangerous to hang around. I lost my yen for souvenirs after seeing that grim sight. A few more spectators had arrived, but they kept a respectable distance from the wreckage, which eventually burnt itself out.
It was the first time I had actually seen a burnt out aeroplane, and it left me with an uneasy feeling of sadness and foreboding." Unquote.
Reading those pages of `Britain at War` brought back the memory of that tragedy so clearly. It was by sheer chance I bought the magazine and an amazing coincidence I was probably one of the few people alive today who saw it happen first hand.