‘They died to save me’: salute to air crew who veered to avoid children
Tribute marks day 75 years ago when 10 US fliers crashed while trying to protect youngsters in park
EVER since childhood, Tony Foulds has been gripped by an unimaginable sense of guilt.
In February 1944, the pensioner was eight years old, and playing with friends in Endcliffe Park, Sheffield.
Suddenly, a stricken US B-17 Flying Fortress returning from a raid over Denmark appeared overhead. It veered away from the park and crash-landed in a neighbouring wood, killing all 10 crew members on board. Mr Foulds believes the pilot deliberately swerved to avoid hitting him and his friends. He has devoted his life to caring for the memorial to the men.
Since the memorial was put up in 1969, Mr Foulds has visited six days a week, carefully polishing the brass plate, scattering poppy seeds and talking to the long-dead aircrew he counts as “close friends”. Even as a teenager, he would visit the crash site and scatter flowers in the woods.
Yesterday morning, at a flypast held to mark the 75th anniversary of the sacrifice – and to honour his contribution to preserving the memory of the men – Mr Foulds, 83, wiped a tear from his eye and admitted he would take the pain of what happened that day to his grave. “I do honestly blame myself for them dying and I always will,” he said.
Mr Foulds, a retired grinder who has two children and three grandchildren, also surprised his family by revealing his wish for his ashes to be scattered next to the memorial so he can always be close to the spot.
“My daughter scowled a bit when I told her but that’s what I want,” he said.
Thousands attended yesterday’s flypast, queuing from dawn to watch US and RAF aircraft, including F-15E Strike Eagles, a Second World War Dakota and an RAF Typhoon pay tribute.
The Strike Eagles flew in a formation known as the “Missing Man” in tribute to the men killed. After the wartime incident, Lt John Krieghauser, pilot of the US bomber, nicknamed Mi Amigo, was posthumously awarded the US distinguished flying cross for his bravery.
Among those to travel from the US to attend the ceremony was Megan Leo, whose cousin Melchor Hernandez died
‘I don’t want him to feel guilty … what happened that day was not the fault of the children in the park’
in the crash. “I don’t want him to feel guilty and don’t think my family would want him to feel guilty,” she said of Mr Foulds. “What happened that day was not the fault of the children in the park.”
Mick O’hara, a USAF veteran, who served on B-52 bomber bases in the Vietnam war, also travelled over and said the event had been “wonderful to see”.
Mr Foulds said the US president had been invited to the ceremony. Although Donald Trump was absent, Robert Wood Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, telephoned before the event to express his gratitude.
The flypast was the idea of Dan Walker, the BBC presenter who lives in Sheffield and who encountered Mr Foulds one day while jogging through the park. He subsequently launched a campaign to have the men remembered with a flypast (although he was absent yesterday as he was preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief). He has urged supporters to call for Mr Foulds now to be made an MBE. After the flypast, visitors paid their respects at the memorial, where the US flag flew at half-mast. It is surrounded by American oaks planted for the 50th anniversary in 1969.
Among the bystanders was Vicki Stolz, 52, whose mother, Jill, watched the aircraft crash in 1944.
“She remembered seeing the reflection of the plane in the houses overlooking the park and was too frightened to turn around and look,” she said.
Kerry Yate had also come to pay her respects to the airmen with her son, Riley, eight, who said: “If it was me, I would have been quite sad and also quite scared.”
Mr Foulds said: “It’s lovely to see so many people here but I shall be back here as normal tomorrow.”