Stars pay homage to
Daily Express Saturday May 12 2018 EXCLUSIVE SELFLESS: Corporal Daphne Pearson Assistant Section Officer Daphne Pearson GC, introduced by Mary Berry CBE Mary says: “There is something extraordinary about a person who will confront danger to help a loved one. “I remember a photograph of a Swedish woman who was seen racing towards the tsunami of 2004 while everyone else was running, screaming, in the other direction. “It transpired that her child was sitting on the beach and was in mortal danger. “As amazing as that lady was, her actions are explicable on the grounds that she was acting on the instinctive love of a mother. “The story of Daphne Pearson, however, tells of a woman who ran towards a burning ‘cauldron’ which was about to explode with no other motivation than to try to save the life of a complete stranger.” Born in Hampshire in 1911, Corporal Daphne Pearson was a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) at RAF Detling in Kent. On May 31, 1940, she was awoken by the noise of an aircraft in trouble over the base. Grabbing her tin hat she ran outside and saw an aircraft smashing into trees. A guard shouted at Daphne to stop but she ran to the scene and saw what she later described as, “the fearsome sight of the plane on fire”.
Two crewmen were dragging another man out. Instructing them to leave him and get help she continued to pull the injured man away from the blaze by herself.
His face was covered in blood and he was moaning in pain. A tooth had pushed through his cheek so Daphne pulled it out.
“Full tank,” he tried to warn her. “Bombs,” he gasped. Without thinking she took off her tin hat and placed it over the serviceman’s head. She then laid herself over him to offer protection from the blast, digging her elbows into the ground.
At that moment a 120lb bomb went off and the plane exploded.
“All the air in my stomach was sucked out,” Daphne later recalled. She couldn’t see for a few hours but reported for duty the following morning. When she arrived for her shift the commanding officer of 500 Squadron and three other officers stood to attention and saluted her.
Winston Churchill announced in Parliament her award of the Empire Gallantry Medal (this was later changed to the George Cross when this superseded the award) and today her portrait hangs in the Imperial War Museum, London.