Flying high above Bristol

The four aircrew got out of the plane and the pilot asked the startled Emerald Isle worker, in French: “What part of France is this?” As he did not understand the somewhat strong Goidelic accented reply, he realised that something was amiss, and drew his pistol and made haste back towards the airplane, shouting instructions to his crew. Well, they didn’t get very far as they were hemmed in by the tractor.

Shortly after, the Home Guard soldiers arrived and after a lot of shouting and waving of (possibly bullet-less) rifles, they persuaded the invaders to surrender.

These German chaps had been on a bombing mission to Birkenhead Docks and had become disorientated due to the RAF radiating electronic countermeasures on their homing beacon at Brest. They had mistaken the Welsh coast for Cornwall and, having crossed the Bristol Channel, which they thought was the English Channel, they landed on what they thought was an airfield in France.

Their aircraft was indeed a prize. This captured airplane was first flown to RAE at Farnborough for evaluation. Then onto RAF Collywestern to join 1426 Enemy Aircraft Flight known as RAFWAFFE. The aircraft was painted in RAF colours, given the registration of EE205 and joined the many other captured German aircraft and used in a variety of purposes.

Under interrogation, the German aircrew were not very communicative, although admitting to their navigational errors, and were eventually dispatched to one of the POW camps to sit out the war.

The flight took off from Lanveoc-Poulmic, Brittany France at 11.35pm to bomb the docks at Birkenhead. On return it was misled by the Meacon transmitter at Lympsham, Somerset, and low on fuel landed intact at RAF Broadfield Down, later renamed RAF Lulsgate Bottom (now known as Bristol

International Airport), at 6.20am.

After a harsh initial training as a 15-year-old boy entrant at RAF Cosford in the 1950s, I went on to serve 15 years in the RAF, mainly on air movements, before joining Civvy Street and spending the rest of my working life in a demanding civilian post at Bristol Airport, when I also joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and served as Training Officer.

My account of the adventures of a career spanning more than 44 years covers a wide range of experiences, from the amusing to the astonishing. They are a fascinating glimpse of the flying business from the inside

In my memoirs, I have written a great deal of my 27 years working at Bristol Airport, and it’s a fascinating story of the airlines, the people who worked there and the incidents that the traveling public got up to.

My book ‘Flying From the Ground’ is available from Amazon as both a hardback and an e-book.

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