First off my name is Paul not Pete, secondly the Hitchin Comet is inaccurate and wildly misquoted me. I am not and was not angry at the Parish Council just to clear that up!

Back in 2010 I contacted the Parish Council (different Clerk back then who didn’t even live in the village!) and they weren’t interested, as the anniversary date was fast approaching a couple of months ago now, I contacted the village newsletter as I felt the event should get some recognition on the 70th anniversary, the editor forwarded my request to the present Clerk who knew of the crash but didn’t have the details. He mentioned it at the next parish council meeting and again they decided against doing anything. Note memorials are very expensive and all I wanted was for anniversary to be mentioned in the Village newsletter, this has now happened.

I recently spoke to Pat Thorne who is the last surviving person who witnessed the aftermath of the crash and he filled in some additional details. He was also able to clear up a rumour about a B17 crash between Little Offley and Wellbury, this never happened and in fact it was a German bomber that was jettisoning its bombs in the field next to Little Offley House at regular intervals, the last one being on the other side of the Hexton Road to the north. Several of the bomb craters still exist one as a pond in the field next to Little Offley House/Farm. Just goes to show how these things get adapted.

One footnote was the farmer whose wife and daughters were killed in the crash later committed suicide in one the barns.