Bristol men create woodland lasting tribute to wartime airman lost in crash

Three retired Bristol men have teamed up to create a lasting tribute to a wartime airman.

It was August 26, 1944, when an airman died after baling out of a burning Wellington bomber which crashed near Keynsham.

He was found dead in Hencliffe Woods, Hanham Green, by retired Cadbury worker Malcolm Williams who was nine years old at the time.

He said he ran back home and told his father: "Dad, there's a man asleep in the woods with blood coming from his nose."

Mr Williams, now 76, of Common Road, Hanham, showed a friend, John Cummins, the spot where he found the RAF sergeant 65 years ago.

Mr Cummins, 70, a retired printer of Whittucks Road, Hanham, said he sometimes made a point of marking the two-minute silence at 11am on Armistice Day by standing near the spot where the airman died.

He has since become intrigued who the airman was but could never find out his identity.

He found out about the Hanham Local History Society after reading a noticeboard near the woods and decided to contact the group's treasurer, Roy Crew.

Mr Crew, 63, made some inquiries and discovered that the airman was Frank Samuel Martin, 28, from Kent who was one of six crew aboard the bomber which was returning home after a mission in Normandy.

It is believed the plane might have been lost on its way back to its base at Chipping Warden, near Banbury, and could have been following the River Avon to find its bearings.

It was caught in searchlights shortly before it entered into an almost vertical dive and crashed at Lower Uplands near Keynsham. One of the theories is that it might have been shot down by friendly fire, although there is no evidence to prove this.

Two of the crew baled out, one of whom was Sgt Martin.

The rest of the crew perished with the burning plane which was excavated during the 1980s.

Mr Cummins had a small plaque made which has been fixed to a wooden cross that Mr Williams had made by staff at Harveys Shopfitters, a firm near his home where he now works as a part-time cleaner.

Mr Williams said: "The cross is a tribute to the airman who died.

"I always think about what happened every time I walk past the spot in the woods."

Mr Cummins said: "Malcolm told me about it way back in 1985 and I often wondered who the airman could have been. When I found out about the local history group, I got in touch with Roy who helped me to find out his identity.

Mr Crew said: "It was a bit of a struggle to find the information but I have a brother in the ATC."

WELLINGTON BOMBER FACTFILE

l The Wellington was a British twin-engine, long-range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey.

l It was first flown on June 15, 1936 and its last flight was in March 1953.

l A total of 11,461 The number of Wellingtons were built, the totalled 11,461, the last of which rolled out on October 13, 1945.

l Some 1,332 Wellingtons were lost in action during more than 47,000 operations with Bomber Command during the Second World War II.

l The Wellington was powered by a pair of 1,050hp (780 kW) Bristol Pegasus radial engines. They were equipped with up to eight Browning machine guns and could carry bombs weighing 4,500lbs.

l The aircraft had a crew of six – a pilot, radio operator, navigator/bomb aimer, observer/nose gunner, tail gunner and waist gunner.

l There are two surviving Wellington bombers – one is on display at the Brooklands Museum in Surrey and the other is on show at the Royal Air Force Museum in London.

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