Outdoor Talk - Part III
By: John Stanley
Sam Mundy, the young despatch rider, was tasked with arranging for an ambulance to collect the wounded. He ran back to the Transport Section and advised them to take the field ambulance down the Lower Exbury road, which skirts the east side of the estate, and to access the field through the holes in the hedge which had been made by the Junkers engines.
Allan Green was a sick berth attendant at HMS Mastodon, and he remembers one of the young wounded men being brought to the sick bay. There was absolutely nothing that could be done for him, and he died a few hours later.
The dentist Richard Stephens also helped to look after one of the wounded. He remembers seeing a wallet protruding from one of his pockets. He was curious to take a look at it, but decided to leave it for investigating staff to deal with. A Wren, Kathleen Maskell, also saw one of the men who had been brought to the sick bay. With his blond hair and blue eyes he looked remarkably like her brother - and this prompted her to wonder "What on earth are we fighting for ?"
Meanwhile, back at the crash site, and perhaps not surprisingly in wartime, a number of items were taken as souvenirs by some of the servicemen at HMS Mastodon. These included some of the crew's personal belongings - including the pilot's watch and an iron cross medal.
News of this activity must have spread fast, for there was a thorough search of the camp once the men returned to Mastodon.
A local policeman arrived on the scene and, by all accounts, took charge of the incident. He had the onerous job of sifting through the human remains in order to determine exactly how many casualties there had been. There was great surprise when it was established that there had, in fact, been seven men on board this German bomber. Seven men in a plane designed for four.
Meanwhile, the Motor Transport office at RAF Calshot, a couple of miles down the road had been requested to send an ambulance to collect the bodies of the men who had been killed. WAAF ambulance driver, Phyllis Hellier, was given the job, and she took an RAF officer with her.
Phyllis approached the crash site from the direction of Lower Exbury from the south. The plane had come down near a sharp bend in the road. She was guided into the field and drove along a narrow track which, I believe, took her to an enclosure on the other side of the copse you can see. She was told which way to point the ambulance and had to wait for the bodies to be loaded on board. Whilst she waited she was presented with a Luftwaffe insignia which had been ripped from the uniform of one of the casualties. You will see a picture of this insignia in the book.
On her way back down the track towards the bend in the Lower Exbury road, she encountered an open top tipper truck coming towards her. Unfortunately the truck didn't give way to her as she had anticipated, and struck the side of the ambulance, causing the canvas roof to fall in. While the business was being sorted out with the truck driver, she looked into the ambulance and saw the bodies of four men, all in blue-grey Luftwaffe uniforms, and wrapped in blankets.
The journey back to the mortuary at Calshot was made without further incident. The remains of the other three men were transported in another truck.
The men were buried three days later at Fawley. One of the relatives in Germany kindly sent me two photographs of the burials, which she had been sent by the International Red Cross after the war. You will see these in the book.
I had originally hoped to take you down to the crash site, but it is potentially quite dangerous, as it is just to the side of a very narrow road, and on a sharp bend. The site of the pond where the German bomber came to grief is still quite distinct - you will see a picture in the book. It is very soft underfoot and has been left uncultivated, the rest of the field being used to grow game crops. Also, two thinner areas of hedge still mark where the bomber's engines went crashing through.
I hope you have found this outside commentary interesting. Thank your for your attention. That brings us to the end of today's proceedings. By kind permission of the Rothschilds you are now welcome to visit the gardens.
