As 70th anniversary ceremonies honoring the Allied Forces who served and died in Normandy in the summer of 1944 subside, a small British village is quietly observing its own sacrifice made to the ravages of World War II.
The residents of Freckleton in northwest England on Saturday saluted the memories of 61 people killed Aug. 23, 1944, when an American bomber undergoing a test flight became entangled in severe weather and nose-dived into the village. Thirty-eight of the fatalities were children ages 4 to 6 who were attending their second day of school for the semester.
“The village lost almost an entire generation of children. This crash would be the single largest air disaster suffered by the Allies in World War II,” said James R. Hedtke, who has taught history and political science at Cabrini College in Radnor since 1974.
Despite his vast knowledge of history, the 64-year-old Marple resident did not learn about the Freckleton tragedy until 1987, when he and his wife, Judy Ivers Hedtke, visited her lifelong pen pal, Jackie Whittle Martin, and her husband, Peter, in Freckleton. Jackie Martin would soon become Hedtke’s collaborator in researching his book, “The Freckleton, England, Air Disaster” released this year by McFarland Publishers.
“It’s one of many untold stories. It just kind of got lost in the dust bins of history. There was no major battle won or lost there. The tide of the war doesn’t turn there, yet this village made the ultimate sacrifice,” said Hedtke.
The professor, who has authored books on lame duck presidents and Civil War soldiers as well as two comprehensive texts on American history , said he opted to write about the air disaster in the small English village instead of just “writing a book on a battle that everyone’s done.”
“I think it’s important for historians to paint the whole picture of what happened in the war,” said Hedtke.
It did not take him long to be inspired to write the book after Jackie Martin told him the story of the airplane crash, then showed him the mass burial site of the children at the Holy Trinity church yard in Freckleton.
“You couldn’t help but be moved by the memorial because the urns had the names of all the little children and the teachers’ names and flowers,” said Hedtke. “It made me wonder what it would be like to lose all of your children at once.”
Freckleton librarian Joyce Turner had already written a small book about the actual plane crash, said Hedtke. He has tried to tell the story of the village before the crash and how it is today as well as the story of the Army Air Force Base Air Depot 2 also known as BAD2 in neighboring Warton, with the help of newsletters from the BAD2 Association and the U.S. Air Force records staff at Maxwell Air Base in Alabama.
“The content of the book is absolutely amazing. It outlines details that I or my family did not even know,” said Martin.
When Hedtke first proposed the book, it was Martin’s idea to contact the survivors.
“She said, ‘I’ll go around the village to people’s homes to gather information.’ A lot of them are elderly and didn’t have email,” noted Judy Hedtke, herself a librarian for Notre Dame de Lourdes Grade School in Ridley Township.
The 65-year-old Springfield native was 9 years old when she became Martin’s pen pal by answering an ad in the back of Ingenue magazine. Since finally meeting 27 years ago, they have traveled back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean several times, visiting for such occasions as their children’s weddings. Hedtke has three daughters and seven grandchildren. Martin has a son, a daughter and four grandchildren.
Their families met in 1987 when the Hedtkes were in Ascot, England visiting James’ college roommate, John Lindros and his wife, Marie who were there for John’s job with ARCO Chemical. The Hedtkes took a train across the country to Preston, England to meet the Martins. Jackie told them about the neighboring Army Air Force base that turned her town into “Little America” during World War II because of the influx of airmen, and the U.S. bomber that tragically crashed into what would one day be her school.
“When I first started writing to Judy (nee Ivers) Hedtke, I never thought that the crash would have such a huge impact on our friendship,” said Martin who is a retired British government worker.
When James Hetdtke told Martin about his idea for a book in 1987, she immediately proceeded to travel about Freckleton, knocking on doors, collecting statements from survivors of the 1944 tragedy.
“It was not all that difficult to trace them as it is only a small village and you could say ‘everyone knows someone who was affected by it,’ so I was able to follow up all the leads I got,” said Martin.
Among the dozen survivors she contacted, were some of her own relatives.
“I was born in 1947 so I was not around at the time but both my parents and their families all lived in Freckleton, and were working in the village or the local area. They were all devastated and could not believe what had happened. Many of their friends had children that were killed so I think my parents were of great support to others,” said Martin.
During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Force established BAD2 on a filled-in marsh in Warton next to Freckleton to repair and refurbish planes that had been on bombing missions, as well as to assemble aircraft. Its northwest England location was selected because it was the farthest range from German enemy bombers. It is now the headquarters for the Military Air Solutions Division of BAE Systems which employs more than 6,500 workers who assemble and test such aircraft as the Tornado, Nimrod and Typhoon there. Many of the 70-year-old photographs for Hedtke’s book were provided by BAE.
“Before the Air Force was there it was just a little village of under 1,000 inhabitants. It was mostly agricultural with a textile mill. People worked either in agriculture, the textile mill or in the service industry,” said James Hedtke.
With the arrival of BAD2 came about 10,500 Americans. There were so many that Allan and Rachel Whittle transformed a garage into the Sad Sack Café, named for the GI character created by cartoonist George Baker, which they operated with their 15-year-old daughter, Pearl. It was across the street from the Church of England School of the Holy Trinity that included an “infant wing” in the east side of the building for 4 to 6-year-olds and classrooms on the north and south for students ages 7 through 13. There were 176 children attending their second day of school for the semester on the morning of Aug. 23, 1944.
That day, at 8:30 a.m., First Lt. John Bloemendal was outfitted in his parachute and ready to pilot the newly-refurbished Classy Chassis II B-24 for a test flight when he was called to attend to another matter because he was “officer of the day.”
“There was no rain. There was sunshine but he got a call that he was needed somewhere else on the base. No one knows what the call was about. So he had to scrub the flight and re-schedule it for 10:30,” said Hedtke who noted had Bloemendal not been delayed by the call, Freckleton would have been left “unscarred.”
Almost immediately Bloemendal and his crew, Sergeants Jimmie Parr and Gordon Kinney, were informed by the control tower that they should return to the base because of an unusually severe thunder storm that had suddenly descended on the area.
“By 10:42, the pilot sees he can’t make a landing because there is no visibility and high winds so he banked right because he was going to go to the north to get out of the storm,” said Hedtke.
Instead, the 25-ton “nose-heavy” bomber was caught in a downdraft of winds measured at between 60 and 80 miles per hour. It crashed into Freckleton at 10:47 a.m.
“He was forced downward. There was nothing he could do. His nose goes right down into the village. He hits the Sad Sack Café and kills 18 of the 20 people there then the plane slides across the road into the infants’ wing of the school, then explodes,” said Hedtke.
Three houses were also partially damaged as the bomber cartwheeled down Lytham Road before demolishing the café and careening into the school.
Thirty-eight of the 41 children, ages four to six, and their two teachers were consumed in the ball of fire that was fed by 2,793 gallons of 100-octane fuel. Airmen from BAD2 scrambled over the 8-foot high brick wall that separated the base from the school, grabbed the 135 students in the higher grades and passed them over the wall to safety while other U.S. Airmen and members of the British National Fire Service extinguished the inferno.
“One of Jackie’s uncles is married to Val Preston. She was a 7-year-old who escaped, but her 5-year-old brother, George, died in the fire,” said Hedtke who noted that the airmen made Preston an honorary member of the BAD2 Association.
In addition to the 38 children and two teachers at the school, the death toll included the plane’s pilot and two crew members, and at the café, seven American servicemen; four members of the Royal Air Force; the café owners and their daughter; and three café workers.
Ironically, three of the children killed had been relocated from London to Freckleton to escape the danger of German V-1 rocket attacks.
Many of the fathers of the Freckleton children were away at war so the American airmen would host parties and other events for the British youngsters. The night before the crash, the Americans were handing out candy to the village children according to a Bucks County man whose father was stationed in Freckleton at the time of the disaster and who sent Hedtke an e-mail about his dad’s experiences there after hearing Hedtke talk about his book on National Public Radio.
“There was a strong bond between the airmen and the children. That bond existed between the airmen and the village until three or four years ago when the BAD2 Association dissolved,” said Hedtke.
The airmen, in fact, served as pall bearers for the 38 children killed in the crash. On Aug. 26, 1944, each small white coffin was carried on the shoulders of two Americans through the village from Holy Trinity Church to the communal burial site in the church yard. Only Airman Painter Alexander carried a coffin by himself because at 6 foot 8, he was too tall to match up with another pallbearer.
“He carried the coffin of Judy Garner, age 5, who bore a strong resemblance to Shirley Temple,” said Hedtke.
The same day Jane Garner learned of her daughter’s death, she got word that her husband, Michael “Mick” Garner, had been killed in combat in Germany on Aug. 17.
“She loses her daughter, finds out about her husband’s death, and on top of that two of her nieces went down in the fire,” said Hedtke.
At the suggestion of his commanding officer, Alexander contacted Mrs. Garner who was living with her father. The father liked Alexander and began regularly inviting him to Sunday dinner. Alexander eventually asked Mrs. Garner on a date. After turning him down several times, she followed her father’s advice and agreed to go out with Alexander.
“They married in 1946 in Holy Trinity Church, moved to the United States, had two children, one of whom is James Alexander. They lived happily ever after. Painter died in 1979. Jane died in 1990 on their wedding anniversary,” said Hedtke.
Another one of the pallbearers, Airman Tom Miller, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw the names of the deceased children before the funeral and was drawn to that of Sonia Dagger because he thought her first name was beautiful. As fate would have it, when the flowers were removed from the coffin Miller carried, it bore her nameplate.
“He goes back to Baton Rouge, marries Beatrice Swindler but said, ‘I have one caveat. If we have a daughter, she has to be named Sonia,’” said Hedtke who was able to interview Tom Miller in 2008.
The Millers did indeed have a daughter whose first name is spelled “Sonya”. The retired airman was reluctant to contact Sonia Dagger’s parents, Wilfred and Clarice, for fear of triggering sad memories, but in 1979, at the urging of an English co-worker, Miller finally met them. They gave him a cherub-cheeked photo of their 5-year-old daughter taken two days before she died. It is included in Hedtke’s book.
“They were pleased the memory of their daughter lives in his daughter,” said Hedtke.
The professor is planning to meet Sonya Miller on April 15, 2015, when he is scheduled to speak about his book at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. He is also scheduled to speak at the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum in Pooler, Ga., where there is a Freckleton Air Disaster Memorial, on July 21, 2015.
“Every time Jim goes and speaks I’m in tears. It is very sad and yet the villagers never held anything against the Americans. They look at it as casualties of war,” said Judy Hedtke.
The professor, who compiled information about the Freckleton Air Disaster for more than 20 years until he began writing the book in earnest in the summer of 2008 while recuperating from a broken foot, met with several survivors on July 27, 2012, in the lounge of the Martin home. His wife and his grandson, Luke Lozowicki, who was then 14, were with him.
“It is a sad story that needed to be told. All these people are heroes,” said Lozowicki who is now a sophomore at Marple Newtown High School.
Among the Freckleton villagers Lozowicki and the Hedtkes met with at Martin’s home was Ruby Whittle Currell who was four at the time of the crash and one of three children in the school’s infant wing to survive the fire.
“She was taken to the base hospital, burned over 40 to 50 percent of her body,” said Hedtke.
On Sept. 2, 1944, legendary crooner and actor Bing Crosby was entertaining the troops at BAD2 when he learned about the crash and the burn victims. After his show, he went over to the hospital to visit them.
“Little Ruby is all wrapped up like a mummy, all in gauze and Bing Crosby starts talking to her and he asks her, ‘What would you like me to sing?’ and all she knew was ‘White Christmas,’” said Hedtke.
Crosby tried three times to sing the song by the burned child’s bedside but kept choking up. Finally he walked out into the hall and sang from there.
“He just couldn’t look at her. That’s her most vivid memory of being in the American hospital on the base,” said Hedtke.
Jackie Nichol, who also met with Hedtke, was 13 when the bomber crashed into his school. He had been sent by the principal to close the windows in the infants’ wing and reached the doorway just as the plane struck the classroom full of 4 to 6 year olds.
“He saw the fireball rise and saw the teacher collapse probably from smoke inhalation. He told me the air got sucked out of his lungs, the heat was so intense,” said Hedtke. “He regrets to this day that he ran out of the room. He said , ‘I wasn’t scarred physically that day but I’ve been scarred mentally the rest of my life.’”
Nichol, who grew up to become a decorated Korean War veteran, told Hedtke that witnessing the Freckleton air disaster was worse than anything he had experienced in combat.
“He thought he should have helped the people in that room but how could he? It was a ball of fire. What could a 13-year-old do to stop that?,” said Hedtke.
Elsie Barlow Dollin was mercifully not at Holy Trinity School that fateful day because she was attending high school in the next town. But the day after the tragedy, she stopped by the café where her friend, Pearl Whittle, had been killed.
“She looked in the rubble and saw a remnant of the scarf she gave Pearl for her 15th birthday. She kept it her whole life and this is the first time she showed it,” said Hedtke who has a photo of Pearl juxtaposed with the singed piece of gold and red fabric that Dollin pulled out of her purse to show him.
The Holy Trinity school was rebuilt on its original site and remained there until the 1970s. It is now less than a mile from the original site and has been renamed the Freckleton Church of England Primary School. In Freckleton on Aug. 20, 1945, a playground built by Americans was dedicated in memory of the victims of the bomber crash.
“The Americans have been coming over here every August for a very long time to meet up with families that were affected and have provided money for a memorial garden and its upkeep,” said Martin.
Saturday was the first year since the 1944 tragedy that a BAD2 Association representative did not attend the annual memorial service, because of the advanced ages of the airmen. Hedtke could not attend because his college classes begin Monday, but his thoughts were with the citizens of Freckleton.
“What a price this small village paid, really, for our freedom and liberty,” said the professor.