Wartime watch’s amazing journey after wearer killed
A watch that survived a plane crash during World War II sits in an Invercargill home, frozen in time.
Invercargill man Peter Thomas was only three months old when his father, Flight Sergeant Charles Frank Thomas, left to fight in World War II.
It was May 1942, and he took with him a gold watch Thomas’ mother had given him with an engraving on the back that said ‘‘Charles from Margaret. Love 26-7-41’’.
Charles was a rear gunner on board a Stirling bomber, which crashed in a field when the dashboard malfunctioned as it was attempting to land at a nearby airport in England.
On November 31, 1943, he and the crew had been back and forth on an operation flight over enemy territory and on the seventh trip back the plane crashed, killing all but one, Peter Thomas said.
‘‘Mum was always comforted that they’d got back to Britain, and they weren’t lost in the sea or over Europe.’’
Days later, according to newspaper articles from the time, Englishman Frank Willson was walking near where the Stirling wreckage was found, when he found a watch in the mud.
Willson sold the watch and a bike to a pawn-broker in town, where he received £3 for both.
The pawn-broker held onto the watch for a while before deciding to repair it. Then he discovered the engraving on the back and reported it to police.
Willson admitted he’d found it on the wreckage site, reports say.
The pawn-broker took the watch to the local war office and asked if there was record of a man named Charles who had died in a plane crash recently.
From there, the pawn-broker was able to have the watch sent back to Thomas’ mother in Invercargill, where it has remained since.
It would have been very emotional for his mother to receive the watch in the post, Thomas said.
‘‘If it hadn’t of been for the writing on the back of the watch. He would have got away with it.’’
Willson pleaded guilty to stealing the gold watch, and was fined £4.
Back home, Thomas now keeps the watch, which no longer has its straps, in a small box.
It is kept along with newspaper articles about its journey back to New Zealand, a photo of his father – who is wearing the same watch – his mother and him as an infant and letters from the military in regards to his death and the watch.
Charles was 31 when he went off to war. ‘‘I wonder why he went, but I never thought to ask Mum at the time.’’
His mother remembered every detail of the day he left.
‘‘[Charles] left George St [Invercargill] by taxi to catch the train. Both his parents were crying, as you would, and it was pouring with rain.’’
Thomas and his wife, Judith, visited his father’s grave in Cambridgeshire a few years ago.
‘‘You could feel it go around you. It was quite a moment, having not gone to a funeral here. You can sort of experience it all.’’
They also visited the crash site, where the gap the plane cleared in a line of trees remains today.
‘‘It was mind-boggling [to see the gap in the trees]. The accident site was unbelievable. It is still clearly there.’’