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Hosstory - Bombs Away

Chapter 1

Has anyone wondered about why there is a ‘decorative’ pond on the cliff top at Brigg Corner? Why put a pond there? Unusual, don’t you think? Could be something to do with the enviromentalist freaks who love to put natural looking ponds and things in the most un-natural looking of places? Could be even there due to natural causes? You may assume.

But no. The pond site, or in fact the pond itself has been there a lot longer than the swamp that now adorns the place, and its origins were a lot more violent, and indeed unusual, than the decorative array that is placed on the site now to make it look ornamental.

Before the council recently dug out the deeper hole and filled it with plants that they thought would look watery, there was more of a shallow hollow, round in shape but about the same size, with quite an amount of water filling to its edges. It had its own water foliage and amphibians such a newts could be found there.

This hollow was in fact the remains of a crater. A bomb crater. A bomb crater made way back in 1943 by an exploding World War II bomb dropped from the belly of a Word War II bomber.

Why would anyone, especially the Germans, want to bomb Filey, let alone Filey Brigg? You may ask. An odd waste of resources on their behalf to say the least. The Brigg had no strategic bases. It manufactured nothing of military or top secret value. Even from the air it didn’t look like anything military or man made. Maybe some of the Germans had spent a holiday in Filey prior to 1939?

All that Filey did have at the time was a thriving fishing community, who’s young sons, like so many others, had gone to give their all to defend theirs and the rest of the worlds freedom from the Nazi oppression.

Chapter 2

It had all began one early summers morning in 1943 as sixteen cobles had set off to retrieve their catch from the lines and the pots far out in Filey bay.

It was a cold but calm day and the boats had stopped and had gradually drifted as the men worked to haul and recast their traps. Unknown to them something involving their craft was happening. Something quite by chance that they could not have seen from where they were, for if they had, they could, and would have done something about. There oblivious they carried on hauling and baiting their lines and pots, and worked on.

Chapter 3

Far away to the south of Bridlington on the Carnaby airfield, the time had come for the twenty three Lancaster bombers to join another of the thousand bomber air raids against Adolf Hitler’s tyranny and oppression. Here the bombers sat, their engines ticking over, waiting at their takeoff points for the signal for them to take their turn to head for the runway, and thereon their designated target in the heart of Nazi Germany. For one particular bomber crew in this squadron, this was to be no ordinary mission, and unfortunately for them, it was to be their last.

The flash was given from the control tower and one by one the bombers taxied to the end of the runway. Finally ‘F’ Foxtrot sat there. Sergent Waring pushed the four throttles forward and let off the breaks. Keeping the control column as far forward as he dare he felt the plane pick up speed. This was always a trying time for any crew as if there was a time when something was to go mechanically wrong, it was now. His flight engineer held his hands on the throttles also, pushing them as hard as he could to gain every last ounce of power out of the Merlin V engines. The whole of the bomber vibrated, its every surface buzzing as if alive. Faster and faster it went gaining speed, coming closer and closer to the moment when it would leave the ground and become its true self.

In the cockpit Waring anxiously watched the speed climb. Ninety. One hundred. One hundred and ten. One hundred and twenty. He pulling slowly back on the column and the nose of the mighty aircraft rose upward to meet the sky. They’d made it. They were in the air. Soon they’d be at their cruising altitude and on their way to deliver their one way passengers to Hitlers homeland.

Moving the column left, Waring now banked the aircraft over Filey Bay following the others already in the air.

There below them the fishermen went about their business, pulling lines, bating hooks, tightening the straps of their cement life jackets, and in general taking no notice of what was going on anywhere else in the world.

Two thousand feet above Waring suddenly broke formation and banked the plane further left. Here he began to head further over the bay. Increasing the throttles of the mighty Lancaster bomber he came round as if heading back to the airfield and the land. Immediately the intercom became alive as his crew, thinking there was something wrong, began to question his manoeuvres.

Their questions were answered and their minds were put at ease as their pilot explained the reason for what he had done. Each in turn looked where he was now pointing and all agreed totally with the decision of what he was about to do. The crewmen took their position in the aircraft and prepared themselves as they had done so many times before, for a bombing run.

There below them were the fishing boats, floating casually on the calm waters of the bay. As the fishermen had worked through the afternoon, the sixteen boats had drifted, slowly and casually they’d drifted making the shape of the most hated symbol in the whole of the world. The Nazi Swastika. From above, to the crew of the bomber, it stood out against the water as if painted by brown shirted Nazi sympathisers in the brightest of coloured paint. This is what Waring and his crew had seen, and this is what he was now out to remove from the surface of the earth.

Swinging round again over the white Bempton cliffs, he levelled the aircraft in direct line with the hated cross. There he now gave control to his bomb aimer.

“Steady, steady.” Harrison called. “Left, left.” He instructed “Steady, steady.”

Following the instructions, Waring brought the bomber in direct line with the assembled boats now ahead and below. The target was small but there was no flack to bring them down, no searchlights to seek them out, nor any of the dreaded night-fighters to creep up behind and beneath to tear open the planes belly and explode its load. This would at least make it a spiffingly easy run.

The fishermen heard the roar of the engines and looking up saw the single plane. They knew the aircrafts type, is outlined silhouette against the sky. They knew from its outline it was ‘one of theirs’, and they new that the RAF had no interest in fishing or what they had caught. They took no notice and carried on with what they were doing.

The Lancaster approached, straight and steady, its bomb-bay doors now open revealing its deadly cargo. Waring slowly throttled back and carried on the run. There he waited, as did the rest, for the two words that indicated their work was done and they could head home.

“Bombs gone.” Harrison called.

The load was away and now its burden weight released, the aircraft became more manoeuvrable, more easy to control. Waring pushed forward on the column causing the bomber to dive slowly and bank to the left. Now all they had to do was photograph the results of their mission, turn, and to head for home. That was the easiest of missions they had ever been on.

Below in their boats the fishermen still carried on their tasks. They knew not that several thousand pounds of high explosives were hurtling from the sky toward them. Suddenly they heard the whistle, they saw the huge splashes in a line across the bay that caused waves to hit the sides of their craft; and they heard a bang. One explosion from the land beyond. The one explosion from the one bomb that did hit something that caused it to detonate. In the distance on top of the cliffs at the Brigg Corner, a huge amount of earth was thrown high into the air, instantly digging out a crater, and there afterwards a plume of smoke erupted indicating where the bomb had impacted.

The fishermen knew not why they had been targeted by the RAF. They had always thought that the RAF were on their side. Maybe the crew of the plane had had a bad time while at Butlins, or even in Filey itself, they’d thought. Who or why could tell?

Chapter 4

Not a single boat was damaged during the raid, nor a single fisherman harmed by the falling bombs; but on its return, the whole of the crew of the bomber were arrested, court-martialled, and the next day shot for dereliction of duty.

The bombs that landed in the bay and had not exploded are occasionally washed up on the beach. One person, a model shop owner, finds and collects them. There are photos of him and his hauls on one of the other Filey sites on the web, and if you speak nicely to him in his shop, he’ll show you his collection.

The crater. Well, that’s still there. Now made into a decorative pond for people to walk past and sometimes admire, but still in the exact place where the bomb exploded all those years ago.