Disaster victims’ stories told in book’s new edition

A YORKSHIRE author who specialises in writing about forgotten disasters has added a new chapter to the story of a tragic rail crash in the East Riding after being contacted by victims’ families.

Richard Jones originally published an account of the Burton Agnes level crossing disaster in 2013, recounting the day 12 men lost their lives when a military lorry was hit by a train on the Hull to Bridlington line in 1947.

Ten of the victims were German prisoners who had yet to be repatriated to their home country after the end of the Second World War, and who were part of a group sent to help with the harvest in the East Yorkshire village of Rudston.

They were being taken back to Burton Agnes station for their journey home by two British Army sergeants when the lorry driver’s foot appeared to slip and he accelerated through the wooden level crossing gates and into the path of the express train, which was travelling at 60mph.

Mr Jones succeeded in having a plaque erected at the crash site after the first edition of his book about the disaster was published, and thought the tragedy would again fade from collective memory.

Yet a trickle of emails soon began to arrive, many from German readers who were related to the men who had lost their lives during a strange ‘‘ limbo’’ period of semi- captivity when they were stranded and unable to return to a country in post- war turmoil.

Their information enabled Mr Jones to piece together their stories, and they supplied him with cuttings from German newspapers and even the original telegrams sent to the victims’ families. With time on his hands during lockdown, he compiled a new, final chapter for the book and has now published a second edition.