Tribute to American airmen in park crash
Mi Amigo Memorial Service at Endcliffe Park in Sheffield marking the bomber crash during the second world war
SIXTY-NINE years on, the young American airmen who died when their ‘plane crashed in Endcliffe Park were remembered.
The annual wreath-laying ceremony paid tribute to the ten lost lives on February 22, 1944 when the Mi Amigo bomber failed to make it home from a raid on a heavily defended Luftwaffe airfield in Denmark.
Representatives of RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire joined ex-servicemen and women and civic dignitaries in the park last Sunday as light snow fell. The ceremony was followed by a service at St Augustine’s Church in Brocco Bank.
Denis Anson, aged 77, who now lives in Bakewell, recalled how he was eight and playing in the park at the time of the crash, which killed the airmen who were aged between 21 and 24.
“We saw the plane circulating and then it started coming down, then I heard the engines rev up. I came over to see what had happened but got shoved away.”
John Cole, aged 78, of Bents Green, said: “I’d just finished school at Greystones and come home. I heard a noise, I looked up into the sky and it was spiralling out of the clouds.”
Ken Langley, aged 85, of Lodge Moor, said it was important to pay respects to the US servicemen who had given their lives. “I try to make it here every year. The memories come back to you.”
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Tuesday 21 May 2013
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