Kentish Express Ashford & District
Sorry about your fence, said bomb plane navigator
A retired journalist and author has recalled the night a Heinkel bomber crash-landed in fields near Kennington in his latest publication.
Robin Britcher penned his book about the history of the village during the Second World War, which went on sale earlier this year.
Among the stories he researched is that of the bomber crash landing at what is now the Spearpoint recreation ground at The Ridge at 12.45am on Sunday, May 11, 1941.
Mr Britcher wrote: “It had left Lille, in France, two hours earlier to attack the London Docks. It was the heaviest raid on London during the Blitz.
“The Luftwaffe flew 571 sorties that night and dropped 800 tons of bombs. 1,436 people were killed and 1,792 were seriously injured.”
Among the stories Mr Britcher gathered was that of RAF Spitfire night pilot Roger Boulding, who chased the bomber through the night, under fire from one of the gunners.
After flying low the bomber eventually crashed in Kennington.
On the ground, air raid warden Frank Field saw his fence demolished, and he was joined on the scene by Fred Huckstepp who had seen it fly past his bedroom window.
Fred Huckstepp’s son Peter admitted that, as a veteran of the Somme, his father was “no lover of Germans” and dropped the injured pilot when he heard them speak German.
Kennington resident Peter Rainer described his father going out in his Home Guard uniform, and the pilots were later taken by an armed guard from Spearpoint House to hospital.
Mr Britcher also described the bomber navigator, Albert Hufenreuter, who was born in London, and was taken to hospital in the north of England before being taken to a prisoner of war camp in Canada.
Hufenreuter could not return to his home after the war as it had become part of the communist bloc, so settled in West Germany and became an English teacher.
In 1979 he knocked on the door of Peter Huckstepp in Kennington to tell his story, and also went to see Frank Field to apologise for demolishing his fence.