Brookwood Military Cemetery/Lytchett Minster Churchyard/Glasgow Western Necropolis/ LANCASTER CRASH

I have received another phone call from the BBMF today and they still intend to come over the memorial on Thursday 21st at 14.55 hours.

The only thing that will now cause this not to happen will be aircraft serviceability and / or the weather.

The person who I spoke to was a member of the crew who flew over Ipswich Road 25.04.13 so he remembers the location.

The flight will consist of two fighters and the two Lancasters.

In all likelyhood it will be a case of just going over the once, so photographers will have to quick off the mark.

The aircraft will approach from the Ipswich direction.

Those attending will have to work out the best place to position themselves which could well be on the opposite side of the road to the memorial.

There will probably be a note about this in the Colchester Evening Gazette on Wednesday.

I've gained permission form the nearby Stanfords Cattle Market for those wanting to attend to park their vehicles there. This will be obviously at the owners risk. There will be no charge and cars must be removed by 1700 hours latest. Obviously people will only be there an hour or so at the most.

The cattle market is located in Wyncolls Road CO4 9HU, and will involve a ten minute walk to the memorial site.

If anyone does park there and see any of the Stanfords staff, a polite 'thank you' won't go amiss.


* Please don't try and park at Space Makers as they will be operating a normal working day and we don't want to interfere with their customers.

I hope this gives those who can't get to the Clacton show a chance to see the aircraft.

 

I have just spoken to the BBMF and all looks OK for 14.55 Colchester.

 

We had just the one pass over the memorial site. A fair sized crowd gathered and there seemed to be a lot of interest in the memorial. Several people also gathered by the Boxted airfield memorial in the nearby village of Langham, and they also had a good view of the aircraft I believe.

Once we've pooled through our photos there may be some better ones on here in a day or so.

One of Colchester Film Clubs' members was in attendance and managed to capture the moment as the four aircraft passed overhead, and the local newspapers Chief Reporter also kindly came along to witness the event.

So full marks to the BBMF and Canadians (CWHM) who did what they promised and flew over the UM-K2 DV177 Lancaster Crew Memorial.

To pass over Colchester today meant that they had to go slightly out of their way to do so. It was a significant act of kindness and Remembrance for the young airmen lost near this location during one Spring morning in 1944. Unique in the fact having a Canadian manned Lancaster flying with a British manned Lancaster passing over together at the same time.

The management at Space Makers Safestore also deserve some thanks for their support as do the nearby cattle market 'Stanfords' which allowed cars to park at their premises today.

 

http://www.essexcountystandard.co.uk/news/localnews/11425866.Crowds_watch_Lancasters_fly_over_Colchester_for_the_last_time/

 

Local press report Friday 22.08.14

 

Here are four images of the Lancasters' that I captured at the Clacton Air Show on Friday:

 

Footage from memorial site, credit Christopher Lay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObzvPksDfdc

 

Remembrance Crosses refreshed. 2 minutes silence observed.

 

This image taken a few days before the unveiling ceremony in April 2013 shows some of the club 'SOG' members who were behind the memorial. Sitting on the far left is David Seaborn who saw the burning Lancaster pass his house at rooftop height.

Third in from the left is David Mackie Smith, a dedicated Royal Canadian Air Force historian and retired teacher. He helped with the research and made a special contribution to the project by coming to the U.K. from Canada.

Lofty Tolhurst is standing second in from the left. He was the driving force who welded everyone together.

The caravan in the background is where we all meet up each Sunday.



We are hoping that there may be a little more to add to our memorial project journey soon.

28.02.15:
For those keeping an eye on this thread I hope to have some news early next week.

 

Opposite where we sited the airmen's memorial was a closed down factory site. It was in our minds as far back as 2011 that if this area was ever developed into a housing estate, which was rumoured, we would try to get some of the roads named after the Lancaster crew.

We therefore followed the progress of what was going on there: demolition of the factory, an interim land owner then the land being sold onto to a housing developer. Once we knew who the developer was this company was approached.

Early on, Colchester Borough Council was approached as well, as was our local Member of Parliament and local councillors for the area concerned.

Eventually today we have learnt that the eight roads on the new estate will now be named after the seven crew. A road leading into the Estate will be called 'Lancaster Approach' which is quite appropriate.

At this stage we are now informing the relatives we traced to let them know of this great news. Once that has been done the Council will inform the relatives officially.

So we are very pleased and the men's names will live on hopefully for a very long time.


Pic 3 'Lancaster Approach.'

As one of the relatives who has already responded said: 'who would have thought that so many good things have come from that awful night in 1944.'

 

Received this from Janet Shell, one of the relatives.



https://animoto.com/play/u1DfWRO04e3P0DKUhSnA9A

 

On Sat 25th at 11.00 am a few of us will be meeting up at the memorial to lay a fresh wreath and Remembrance Crosses.

If anyone's interested you are welcome to join us.


The local press will be in attendance again to cover this.

 

Deleted post

 

Our ceremony tomorrow will now be a formal Act of Remembrance.

This will start at 11.00 am and will include Last Post, a minute's silence and Reveille.

 

Our 2015 commemoration service to the airmen went fairly well despite the weather being against us.

Local newspaper reports attached.

 

For anyone in the Colchester area who'd like an opportunity to see the photographic / information panels that we put together for the 2013 unveiling ceremony we will be displaying these at a Great Horkesley small VJ commemorative event on Saturday 5th September at Great Horkesley Village Hall.

http://www.greathorkesley-pc.gov.uk/new-village-hall/

Photos below show the panels for our club's members to see them where we meet each Sunday prior to the unveiling ceremony in 2013.


On 5th September Tony and Lofty will be on hand to answer questions as will my good self. David who saw the aircraft come past his house on fire as a 15 year old will also hopefully be there for part of the day.

(Please note that no aircraft are flying over if anyone gets the wrong idea from the leaflet).

 

I placed new Remembrance Crosses at 11am today at the memorial and observed a two minute silence.

I feel we owe these airmen at least that much.

Hope others did their bit today wherever they were.

 

From the Royal British Legion booklet 'Live On'

 

In 2011 / 2012 I had two exceptional people come forward in Canada to help with our memorial research. David Mackie Smith was one and a lady who wanted to remain anonymous was the other. Both of these people were instrumental in our managing to find family members of the lost Canadian airmen.

The lady respondent recently passed away I have just discovered. Whilst I did manage eventually to persuade her to have her name mentioned on the completed memorial pillar prior to the unveiling she had wanted to shy away from this. The reason being she carried out many research projects and said she could achieve much more by being an unknown.

Nancy MacFarlane was 84 years old when she contacted me in the Summer of 2012. We had a great many e-mail exchanges. All of these guided an pushed me towards possible link ups with the Canadian airmen's relatives. As no historian myself the whole project was hard going and I was very glad to have her help. I'm sure that without her input we would not have found all three airmen's family members, and not as many as we did either.

As time went by it became apparent that Nancy was quite an intelligent lady and knew how to find information. She was very keen to promote the Canadian Veterans Affairs 'Virtual War Memorial.'

Her research contributions to the Dover War Memorial Project here in the U.K. were much appreciated I have been informed.

And her project regarding the poppy being used as a symbol of Remembrance also is now completed. This project was brought to conclusion by an English lady called Heather Johnson who worked with Nancy and the project was 99% completed just before she passed away in September. Heather is responsible for a very comprehensive document now in the public domain.

This last project quite likely will have world wide importance to how history recalls who was the first lady to use the poppy emblem as a symbol of Remembrance. As said, Heather's completed work is very comprehensive and challenges the existing history of American lady Moina Michael as opposed to the lesser known French Lady Anna Guerin who was behind using the poppy on Remembrance Day.

We hope to build a profile of Nancy and credit her further with the achievements and accomplishments. I think I was very lucky for her to respond to our newspaper appeal back at the start of the airmen's research.

Obituary here: Those with a keen eye will notice the Regiment her father was in during WW2. Her father was a war correspondent and found himself often close to the front lines. The raid on Dieppe has plenty written about it, and her father knew many who were killed there.

Nancy worked as a correspondent for a national Canadian newspaper when she was younger.

Obituary:

http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/Deaths.20151003.93366078/BDAStory/BDA/deaths



This is the project Nancy MacFarlane started and a Heather Johnson completed. Heather is a Colchester historian and by chance I was able to put both parties in touch with each other.


https://poppyladymadameguerin.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Poppy-Lady-of-France-Madame-Anna-Guérin-1620084248242490/

 

With reference to post 170 above, when we knew that the road names were going to be awarded to those of the airmen I put some footage together to show the relatives.

This was the first YouTube presentation:

And this was the second update:

Third update: