THE EASTGATE PLANE CRASH

"All in a day's work, really", explained Derek Bowers when remembering the incident more than forty years before but even at the time, he needed a cigarette or two when it was all over after it was explained that the 1,100 lb. unexploded bomb that had fallen on Eastgate in the early hours of Monday 5th May 1941 could have devastated the entire area.

The bomb was discovered on the evening of Tuesday 11th August 1964 when Derek was operating a JCB digger as part of a small team engaged on excavating the site of the old Butcher's Arms public house in readiness to install new underground petrol storage tanks as part of an expansion scheme for the garage, Riverside Motors, that had been built there five years before.

Derek, then aged 27, of 24 Spalding Road, Bourne, was operating a machine owned by Mr R Stubley of Bourne when he suddenly started to unearth fragments from the plane, electrical wiring, part of a fuel pipe, and even machine gun bullets and then he struck something more substantial and made of metal and lodged about 7 feet 9 inches below the surface.

A small crowd had gathered, half expecting that the excavations might reveal some mementoes from the plane crash but few expected what happened next. "I thought at first it might be the wheel of the aircraft", said Derek, "and I kept hammering it with the bucket to try and shift it but it just would not move. Somebody went down the hole, I think it was Bill Darnes, to have a look and he saw that it was an unexploded bomb and got out pretty quickly. He even left his shovel down there.

"We immediately phoned up the police and eventually a constable came cruising up on his bike but he just wouldn't believe that it was a bomb until he climbed down and took a look for himself. Next thing we knew he came flying out of the hole and before long there were police cars everywhere."

Eastgate was cordoned off and everyone went home for the night, most residents refusing offers of evacuation as a safety precaution although some did go to sleep with relatives.

"It must have been about 11.30 pm when we finished", said Derek, "but I was back there early next morning and we were given the all clear to carry on working. The police said the bomb had been made safe and so I lifted it out on the digger bucket and laid it on the ground nearby and waited for the bomb disposal team to arrive."

The squad eventually arrived from the Bomb Disposal Unit at RAF Newton, near Nottingham and took charge of the operations.

"But what a shock when they did turn up", said Derek. "The team leader jumped out of the lorry with a very concerned expression on his face and when he saw the bomb lying next to the hole, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. 'How the hell did that get there?' he asked and then  explained that it was still live and could have been detonated by the slightest movement and I must say that he was quite surprised when I told him that I had moved it with the digger. He said it could have destroyed the whole of Eastgate if it had gone off and I was so shaken that I had to sit down and have a couple of fags and my goodness, I needed them."

Derek used the digger to help lift the bomb on to a lorry, slowly and very carefully, and it was taken away for disposal.

He is now aged 69 and living in retirement at Thurlby, near Bourne. "I spent most of my life in the same job driving a JCB", he said, "but nothing like that happened before or since. It is something I will always remember."

WRITTEN AUGUST 2006

NOTE: Bomb photographs courtesy Derek Bowers

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