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Village honours 39 lives lost in eight air crashes

John Devine
BBC News, Peterborough
The Thorney Society Michael Sly has short spiked grey hair and is wearing dark framed glasses, he has a pink shirt over a grey tank top and behind him is rural farmland with a new metal laser cut commemorative plaque with trees either side.The Thorney Society
Michael Sly says the village has always been used for flight training since World War Two

A village will commemorate eight separate aircraft crashes that happened in the area with a memorial service and the unveiling of a new plaque.

Thirty-nine people were killed during the incidents, which all took place at different points over Thorney, near Peterborough, between 1941 and 1983.

The first crash, which involved a German Junker bomber, killed three crew. In the last incident, two RAF Wittering airmen died when two Harrier jump jets collided in the sky over the village.

The event on Saturday marks the 80th anniversary of one of the incidents, which took place at the end of World War Two in 1945.

On 29 March 1945, Cpl Robert Louis Phillippe de Bienkiewicz of the Free French Airforce flew his Miles Master MK II training aircraft out of RAF Westwood in Peterborough and collided with a Stirling Bomber from RAF Matching, Essex, carrying seven crew members, all eight lost their lives.

Michael Sly, the chairman of the Thorney Society which organised the event, said says: "Thirty-nine lives have been lost over Thorney, including 18 from the United States Air Force when a Starlifter aircraft crashed in bad weather on 28 August 1976."

There is an existing memorial at Thorney Dyke that honours the American losses in the 1976 incident, which will be rededicated at the service.

Thorney Society A brownish/rusty looking metal sign about 1.5m (5ft) high and 1m (3ft) wide, it has the names of 21 air crew who died laser-cut into it so that when light hits it, the names show up, it is in a wooded area with farmland visible behind it.Thorney Society
Mr Sly says the new memorial plaque highlights the names of the lives lost over Thorney "so the parish can always remember them"

Mr Sly said it was important to remember all the people who lost their lives over Thorney because they were "someone's son, brother, sister, who died doing their service".

"We thought it would be fitting on the 80th anniversary of the 1945 incident to unveil a memorial plaque to the 21 British, French and German airmen that died in skies above the village in the last 80 plus years," he added.

Thorney Society A bronze plaque 1m (3ft) high and 45cm (1.5ft) wide shows the names of 18 USAF crew and passengers killed in a plane crash in 1976, the plaque is set in a large stone.Thorney Society
Eighteen US Air Force crew and passengers are honoured with a bronze memorial plaque near the crash site at Thorney Dyke

The service will begin at 11:15 GMT on Saturday and will be attended by the Bishop of Peterborough, Right Reverend Debbie Sellin, the Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Julie Spence, and the mayor of Peterborough, Marco Cereste.

It will also be attended by Arthur Gee, who remembers the 1945 air crash, and officials from the French and US embassies and representatives from the RAF.

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