I remember there being a memorial stone in Endcliffe Park for a Fyling Fortress that crashed there during the War. Any details on it?

I also remember playing in Ecclesall Woods amidst what I was told were old bomb craters. There are many more such craters out near Stanage Edge - I heard people used to put lights out there during the blackouts to attract enemy bombers.

All that was 20 years before my time - but as a kid everything about the War fascinated me and my mates. All our toy soldiers were from WWII and they all had names. We used to set them all up and have grande battles!

Anyone remember such for real?

I do rememebr being sent home from work after a huge unexploded bomb was discovered near Queens Road in the early 1980s.

the plane was the "Mi Amigo"

you can still see the memorial stone to the airmen in the woods somewhere round the cafe. (its on the bank of woodland going up to your right, as you walk toward the ponds, past the kiddies play area.

the 60-something anniversary of the crash was only a few weeks ago, and the star did a feature about it.

PT

A dummy town was actually created on Stanage edge, which showed lights at night to make it look as though it was part of Sheffield, the bomb craters going in a line towards Redmires dam were some of the results of this.

On the subject of Stanage / Redmires, can anyone provide the grid reference for the WW1 training trenches? I've looked at various aerial photos on www.multimap.co.uk but I can't see anything. Apparently you can see them clearly from the air. Am I missing something really obvious? :confused:

If you go to Padley Gorge, just before Grindleford and just into Derbyshire past Fox House , there is a long trench stretching across the moor - I heard that used to be a training trench. Turn right at Fox House, then an immediate left down to Grindleford. Go past Longshaw Lodge (family used to live there) for about 500m and look over to your right - you should see it easily.

Rupert Atkinson

I believe the 'craters' in Ecclesall woods are called 'Q' pits which are the remnants of the charcoal burning which once went on there.:thumbsup:

Re the flying fortress which crashed in Endcliffe Woods. I attended Hunter’s Bar School at the time and I seem to remember one of my schoolmates, I can’t remember his name, being praised for his attempt to rescue one of the air crew. I don’t remember whether he succeeded or not. The plane was on fire.

Hi Peter,I was also at Graystones (along with Mune) the day the b47 came down don't remember too much,went looking for parts few days later.Graystone's was you a ship in fm Fullwood Homes like myself and mune,Very 1st time I was allowed to talk to girls and it was very scary.

About the trenches on Redmires. Try to find a copy of the latest issue [2005] of Archaeology in South Yorkshire published by the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service. Its available from Howden House at a small charge or the Local History Library should have a copy. It has an article about the trenches and something about the decoy sites around Sheffield.

As mentioned above, the craters found in many Sheffield woods are often Q-pits. These were used to produce whitecoal which is dried wood, rather than charcoal which is carbonised wood. Whitecoal was used for lead smelting.

Rupert :-

Can only give you bits of information , as I was born in 1941 .
However ! My mother and father lived at Audrey Rd . , Intake , during the War and were in their [ our ! ] garden air-raid shelter during the night of the first serious blitz on Sheffield .My mother said after the , ' All Clear ' had sounded they went into their garden and could see a large red , " volcano " burning from the direction of the city centre . They couldn't see it directly as the Manor Top came in-between .........but they realised that something terrible had happened in the city centre .
Sometime around that time a government official had come round to my parent's house to ask who lived there and how many bedrooms there were . ? Apparently this was in connection with a possible invasion by the Germans and the idea was that millions of troops .........etc......would be fleeing North and would want somewhere to sleep .
We kids were issued with a , ' Micky Mouse ' Gas-mask and I remember Ration Books which were in use until about 1951 but all else is a bit vague , I'm afraid and have to dash now , in any case !

During the early part of the blitz we lived on Crooksmoor Rd.
Previous to this we had lived down Attercliffe. Because my father was away in the war and my uncle was, we moved in with my aunt and her family on Crooksmoor Rd.
The house where we used to live down Attercliffe was hit by a bomb.
At least that was what my mother always said.

We lived on a street off the Wicker at the time of Blitz. I only re call some details of the Thurdays night raid and going to the shelter. Part way throught the raid, we had to move to another shelter because Wood's lumber yard on Nursery street had taken a hit and was on fire.

The second shelter was in the basement of a four storey building on Andrews Street, and we had hardly got in when the Luftwaffer dropped a bomb that went through the wicker Arches and blew up on the road below. It was loud but the thing that scared me ( I was just about ready to start school at the time) was the blast that aslo blew all the doors open.

A couple of evenings later, my father took me to see the factory of The Lawrence Razor Blade co. over on Nursery Street (at Johnson street). This had taken a direct hit and a number of people in the shelter at the factory had been killed. I believe this included Mr. Lawrence himself.

In those days, razor blades were made from long lengths of carbon steel strip and the blast from the bomb had blown a length of this strip and draped it around the tower of Holly Trinity Church across the street. It looked like tinsel in the moon light. Before anybody had time to take it down, it rained and the steel went rusty.

The second shelter was in the basement of a four storey building on Andrews Street, and we had hardly got in when the Luftwaffer dropped a bomb that went through the wicker Arches and blew up on the road below. It was loud but the thing that scared me ( I was just about ready to start school at the time) was the blast that aslo blew all the doors open.
.

There used to be a pub at the Wicker that had all glazed tiles on it. Alot of these were chipped and shattered they said it was caused in air raid, probably by the same bomb you remember.

I was about to start school when the blitz came. Old enough to be excited about what was happening but too young to be scared: Well, not at first.

We lived on a street off the Wicker and on the Thursday night raid (Can't remember anything about the Sunday raid), we went into the shelter as usually but after the bombs had been dropping fo a while, we had to move to another shelter. Our first shelter was close to Geo.Wood's lumber yard on Nursery Street and this had been bombed and was on fire.

The second shelter was in the cellar of a four storey building on Andrews Street. We didn't seem to be there very long when a bomb dropped through the Wicker Arches and, I think, blew-up on the road beneath. The noise wasn't too bad but what was scary was the blast that blew open all the doors. We stayed there until the all clear.

Our house had not been hit but all the doors had been blown open and few windows had been broken. We still had electricity but i think that we were without water for a few days. I rmember going with my mother out to the water cart when it came in the street. The gas came back on after a few hours.

What was terrible for me was all the soot from the chimney that had been blown all over the house, particularly on the Christmas Tree. I had been bugging my mother for days to put up the tree and she had done it the day before.

Mi Amigo, there's a book on it, can't remember the author. There's a copy in the library, or try the Sheffield Shop nearby

I'll make this quick. I was 9 living in Tinsley when the 2cnd blitz occured. We were in our Kitchen with my parents and friends playing cards when the sirens sounded. Ten minutes later a sea mine dropped by parachute exploded s few feet from our house destroying it. I'll tell you more about it as time allows another time.
I was at Nwether Edge Grammar when I heard that a B17 had crashed in Endcliffe park, so biked over there from school. The entire paark was blocked by the Army but we could see the tail sticking up among the debris.
A couple of stories. It was said that a kid had tried to rescue the rear gunner who warned him away because the plane might explode. Eye witnesses said the palne was trying for a belly up landing, when the pilot banked away as some kids were playing football and would have been killed.
Someone on here called it a B47,. The B47 was a post war 4 engined jet bomber

[QUOTE=rupert]I remember there being a memorial stone in Endcliffe Park for a Fyling Fortress that crashed there during the War. Any details on it?

Just been looking at a site that has loads of sheffield photos on it, I just saw the photos of the memorial stone. If you click on link and scroll down to feb 9th at bottom of the page there is a couple of pics there.


http://citysnapper.org/dm/2006/02/20060210.html

Mi Amigo The Story of Sheffield's Flying Fortress
By David Harvey.

Published and Printed by..
ALD Design and Print
279 Sharrow Vale Road
Sheffield S11 8ZF

0114 2679402

I had a copy sent to me a couple of years back.....
.......very interesting story....with short bios on the crew members and photos.

The crash of Mi Amigo.....was 62 years ago today.

Would it be about this time when a bomb crashed through the Wicker Arches & didnt explode ???? Can still see the patch work in the roof today.

That would have been a couple of years earlier......
....by 1944 the Germans were more on the recieving end.
My Mothers parents house was blown up by a parachute mine.........
....they were in an Anderson shelter........inside on a sunny day you couldn't see anything.......when the bomb exploded......it was like the flash from a camera and every one was breathless from the blast.
About the same time my father recieved the George Medal from the KIng at Buckingham Palace ....he saved a youth from under a burning buliding with an unexploded bomb....
........I was just going through the papers.
Sheffield was not only a steel producer.......they were making crankshafts for the Rolls Royce Merlin engines...tank turrets and hulls.....both the (later) the Tall Boy and Grand Slam Bombs.
The City has a proud Record during WW2.
A lot of the bombs were duds,(the Wicker Arches may have been one of these.......a hole ...no explosion)....slave labor used to sabotage the bombs.........my Dad told me that they even found notes on paper inside the dud bombs.... wishing us victory over the nazis.
I know that all the films you see show London (they did take the most damage).....but Sheffield has a lot to be proud about.
Have a lot of info from this period .....info on the weapons etc....will share with anybody interested......
.....also talk to your parents and grandparents.......they can tell you stories..........
....when they are gone.....a whole part of Sheffield history will be lost for ever.

The avoiding action taken by the pilot of the Mi-Amigo unboubtedly saved lives. I did not know until today that a similar incident took place in Lancashire later the same year 1944. The outcome was even more tragic than the crash in Endcliffe Parkl

"The Freckleton Air Disaster - at 10.30 a.m. on the morning of August 23, 1944 the worst aircraft crash disaster in the UK during the war occurred when an American B-24 Liberator bomber smashed into the village school of Freckleton in rural Lancashire during a thunderstorm, killing 61 people"

Ceegee......any more info on this......Lancashire........wasn't a bomber on a combat mission...
...was it training......or an anti sub mission....?
I'm interested.
A group of WW11 B-24 crew meet here locally in La.....no one heard of this ...
....or are you claiming it was a Kamikazi attack?

The plane was at a repair facility........they were test flying it...when a heavy rain storm hit the area..........they didn't make the airfield.......Iam sure the crew wanted to die....
....how does this take away from the actions of the pilot at endcliffe park?
In taking out the Gestapo headquarters in Oslo.......a mosquito pilot took the wrong street and bombed a school......................
............at least I can seperate accidents from deliberate actions

Hi Radishes

As I said in the original mail, I had never heard of the incident until I came across an advert for the latest edition of "After The Battle" no 131 which has an article on the tragedy

http://www.afterthebattle.com/ab-con1.html#spec

I have not been able to obtain a copy as yet but the magazine is normally an authorative and well researched source on WW2 matters.

I'm not sure about the contents of the second postl - I think there is a total misunderstanding on that one

The story about the US aircraft was that it was about to land on the green area but kids were playing so the American crew crashed it into the woods,no one survived. I was at the school at Hunters bar that day doing woodwork class and a woman (teacher)came in crying and told the story.

There was a row of old cottages at Southey Green Bus terminus which had a parachute mine hanging on a tree or something,you could see it from the working mens club snooker room.

On the subject of Stanage / Redmires, can anyone provide the grid reference for the WW1 training trenches? I've looked at various aerial photos on www.multimap.co.uk but I can't see anything. Apparently you can see them clearly from the air. Am I missing something really obvious? :confused:
Tony, have alook at these they might help.
This is the site
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/Algy/hill60.jpg

This is some of the trenches to the north of the quarry
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/Algy/trenches.jpg
and these are some puzzling humps and bumps to the SW of the quarry
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/Algy/bumps.jpg