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A monument is unveiled to Lancaster LL840
A monument was unveiled on Monday 22nd June 2009, exactly 65 years to the day after RAF Lancaster Bomber; LL840 with a crew of 8 was shot down and crash landed whilst returning from a bombing raid on oil refineries in Germany. Two of the crew perished in the plane, 6 parachuted out, 3 were captured and taken as POW’s, 2 escaped back to England and one although evading capture for 3 months was later captured and executed without trial by the Germans as a terrorist aged 21 years.
Despite many attempts to find other family members of the crew to attend the unveiling of the monument only F/Sgt Ingram, Sgt F H Shorter and F/Sgt Beresford were represented, the remaining crew S/L T. B. Cole, Exe F/O J. Craven, P/O E. J. Blakemore, W/O J. F. Lane & Sgt P. F. J. Hayes could not be traced.
The monument to the crew of the plane LL840 was organised by 2 Dutch researchers Jan Kiesbrink and Teunis Nooteboom, working with the organisation “Stichtling Broken Wings ‘40 -‘45”, they found the exact site at Oene just on the outskirts of Apeldoorn in the east of Holland. The monument was jointly unveiled by Mrs Margaret Allman (nee Ingram) a cousin to Flight Sergeant Kenneth H C Ingram, who was from the Portsmouth area whose parents had a chemist shop in Regents Park Road in 1927 and then brought the Railway Tavern pub in Claremont Road Fratton. Kenneth attended King Edward VI School from 1937–39 and who’s story about a prize book turning up in a flea market in Holland appeared in the Portsmouth News on Saturday 17th May 2008 with a follow up in the same paper on 26th August 2008.
The Dutch researchers after the unveiling launched a book, giving details of how they discovered the crash site with information from senior citizens, plus the use of a metal detector and found some remains of the plane which the Germans had left behind after taking most of the plane parts back to Germany for equipping their own air force as was the custom at that time, (it is ironic to think that people in England were being bombed by German planes made from British parts).
The unveiling of the monument was a very impressive occasion with the route from the village of Oene being lined with lots of the local people in honour of the fallen heroes that the villagers in 1944 helped escape. Transport by way of old war time military was provided for the people that could not walk to the monument site following a local brass band following at the rear was children for a local school carrying a red rose each which they later laid on the monument. During the speeches a fly past of 4 planes over flew the gathering.
Mrs Allman’s husband Michael researched and printed a book titled “Ken’s Story” for the family to mark the 65th Anniversary, (despite not receiving any assistance from the RAF nor the family that helped raise Kenneth after his mother’s death when he was only 4 years of age). He researched the flight, crash and eventual capture, the book details exactly what occurred to the plane’s crew and later to the 8 Apeldoorn Martyrs, 6 of who were members of a local Dutch resistance group, who assisted allied air crews to return to England. But due to the capture of Kenneth and an American pilot together with 6 members of the local resistance group they were all executed without trial on 2nd October 1944. But an official investigation after the war by the USA War Department (JAG), revealed that both Kenneth and the American’s death was as a result of bayoneting, which fact has never been disclosed by the RAF, who to this day hide this information under a clause of the Freedom of Information Act.
There are already 2 monuments dedicated to the 8 Apeldoorn Martyrs of which Kenneth and the USA pilot are amongst these.
For more information & further photos visit the following:- http://www.monument.apeldoorn-onderwijs.nl/monument%grootschuylenburg.htm
http://www.Ugchelen.org/heidehof/herdenkn.htm
http://info-oene.nl
http://homepage.mac.com/martinvandepoel/PhotoAlbum518.html