A Wartime Reminder
A Dog Fight
In 1940, I witnessed my first “Dog fight”, seemingly right over the Barracks, between German
bombers and Spitfires
It was around mid-day
and probably a Sunday, the skies were blue and the planes were extremely
high. Vapour trails criss-crossed the sky
but I seem to recall that there was no sound of gunfire
and no signs of losses from either side.
It’s possible
that the height of the bombers exceeded the operational height of the 1940
Spitfires
Death of a Sailor
In the summer of 1944 we stayed at the Dumbleton on our one and only fruit picking holiday
One afternoon I
saw a telegraph boy cycle up the lane and he delivered a telegram to the
Billingham’s
cabin
It was to
Matilda Billingham, mother of Clary Billingham, to tell the family that he had
been “Killed in Action”
He was a seaman
on the frigate H.M.S. Blackwood that was badly crippled by a German submarine
on 14th June while on patrol in
the
Fifty seamen
lost their lives
It sank the
following day while being towed back to port, the
submarine was the U-764
H.M.S. BLACKWOOD
It was
particularly poignant for me as, three years earlier, Clary had been hop
picking with us and,
as a sixteen year old had been the oldest
member of our group
His name is
included on the “PLYMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL”, overlooking Plymouth Hoe
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Ironically,
the Blackwood had been a very successful submarine attack ship sinking the
U-600 and the U-648
in the