Sergeant T.E.Jones, an airman of 99 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, is remembered on the war memorial in Whitelackington, South Somerset.

The village of Whitlackington straddles the Old London Road one mile east of Ilminster in South Somerset.  Its 14th century church of St. Mary the Virgin is located well back from the road on rising ground.  Between the road and the church is a field in which the village war memorial, in the style of an obelisk, stands in splendid isolation commemorating four men who lost their lives in the First World War and two killed in World War Two.

One of those remembered is Sergeant Pilot Thomas Edwin Jones who was killed on this day in 1939 while serving with 99 Squadron of RAF Bomber Command.  The squadron was equipped with the Vickers Wellington Mk1a, a long-range medium bomber designed in the 1930s.  The Wellington, which had a crew of 6, was powered by 2 Bristol Pegasus radial engines giving it a top speed of 235 mph and the ability to carry a 4,500 lb bomb load.  The aircraft’s defensive armament was four .303 machine guns, two in a front turret and two in a rear turret.

On the 14th December 1939 twelve Wellingtons from 99 Squadron took off from RAF Newmarket in Suffolk and headed across the North Sea to carry out a shipping strike against German warships in the Schillig Roads.  The officially commissioned history reports: “There they sighted a number of the warships, only to find the cloud base, at 800 feet, too low to attack with Semi Armour Piercing bombs.  Under heavy fire from the warships and from nearby trawlers or ‘flak-ships’, the Wellingtons maintained formation and shot it out with the fighters who soon came up to join the battle; but five of the twelve failed to return, and another crashed when almost home, as against the enemy’s loss of one fighter.”*

Wellington N2911 was one of those which failed to return.  Its crew of six, including 27 year old Sergeant Jones, did not survive.

The war memorial adjacent to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the village of Whitelackington, South Somerset.

Thomas Edwin Jones is also commemorated at the Runnymede Memorial, sometimes known as the Air Forces Memorial, on Cooper’s Hill in Runnymede, Surrey. 

*Royal Air Force 1939-1945, Volume 1, The Fight at Odds, Denis Richards (HMSO.1953).

Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats, mentioned in Quentin Letts’ book Patronising Bastards.

Earlier this year I read Quentin Letts’ Patronising Bastards – How the elites betrayed Britain (Constable, 2017) a hilarious, but barbed take-down of the “furtive elite” who want to “control opinion and dictate attitudes”. 

I was pleasantly surprised to come across a mention for Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats Party.  Mr Tilbrook, I hasten to add, is not one of Quentin Letts’ Patronising Bastards.  The mention in the book comes in a reference to Professor Nicholas Boyle from the University of Cambridge who wrote of the English in the New European: “Like resentful ruffians uprooting the new trees in the park and trashing the new play area, 17 million English, the lager louts of Europe, voted for Brexit in an act of geographical vandalism.”

Quentin Letts informs us that Robin Tilbrook reported Boyle to Essex police for a “hate incident” claiming that: “As an Englishman I am offended by such a tirade by a person who is supposed to be and is paid to be a role model for students.  Attacking the English is just as much “racist” as attacking any other groups.”

Professor Boyle is number 96 on Mr Letts’ list of the top 100 Patronising Bastards.

English voters are " . . . ignored, marginalised and abused in political debate."

I came across this letter in The Week (December 1) from former Labour MP John Denham who is now the director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics at the University of Winchester.  In his letter he notes that: “Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Vince Cable managed to mention England just once between them at this year’s party conferences.”  He also states that English nationalism has no serious political party; it seems he is yet to be impressed by the English Democrats.

Without an English Parliament the people of England have no dedicated political representation and therefore no effective collective voice.  Quite rightly the Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish have their own parliaments and assemblies to represent them.  Aren’t they lucky!

Below is Professor Denham’s letter.  It was first published in The Guardian.   

An overlooked nation.

To The Guardian

It is far too lazy to blame Brexit chaos on English nationalism.  It is a strange type of nationalism that never names the nation, has no serious political party, no leaders or public intellectuals, and no significant cultural expression.  Neither Leavers nor Remainers made an argument about what was best for England (though they did for Scotland and Wales).  Brexit is being led by elite politicians who identify as British, not English.  And Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Vince Cable managed to mention England just once between them at this year’s party conferences.  If English voters have a problem, it is that they are frequently ignored, marginalised and abused in political debate.  Asserting distinct English interests reflects frustration much more than nationalism.

Professor John Denham, director, Centre for English Identity and Politics, University of Winchester

The Church of St. Andrew in the village of Stogursey, West Someset. For St. Andrew's Day!

In his The Buildings of England, South and West Somerset, (Penguin Books Ltd., 1958) Nikolaus Pevsner writes: "St. Andrew, Stogursey, although now a parish church, was the church of a Benedictine Priory, founded by William of Falaise c.1100 as a cell of Lonlay in Normandy.  Stogursey is the englished form of Stoke Courcy."

St. Andrew's Church in the village of Stogursey, West Somerset.

A refuge in Britain for persecuted Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi? A letter to the Daily Telegraph.

Below is the text of a letter I sent to the Daily Telegraph on 26th November.  No idea if it was published!

"Theresa May says she will put her heart and soul into making a success of her Brexit deal.  It is a great pity that she has not the heart and soul to offer refuge in this country to persecuted Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi."

The crash of RAF Liberator KH126 on the Blackdown Hills in Somerset. Those lost commemorated by a memorial in Hare Lane near Castle Neroche.

This month sees the anniversary of the tragic crash of Liberator KH126 belonging to 53 Squadron, RAF Transport Command.  At 1000 hours on 22nd November 1945 the aircraft took off in foggy weather from RAF Merryfield, a wartime airfield just north of Ilminster in South Somerset, only to crash a few miles away at Hare Lane on the Blackdown Hills near Castle Neroche.  The Liberator did not gain enough height to clear the hills which at the area of impact reach a height of 930 ft.  

On board the four-engine long-range aircraft were the 5 RAF crew members, 4 of whom were Polish, and 22 Army personnel returning to India after leave.  There were no survivors.

Three of the Polish airmen are buried in CWGC graves in Ilminster’s cemetery on the western slopes of Beacon Hill. They are Pilot Officer Stanislaw Kleybor DFC, aged 25, the navigator; Flight Lieutenant Leopold Mielecki, aged 34, the pilot; Sergeant Jan Brzezinski, aged 25, the flight engineer. 

Flying Officer Antoni Wize, the wireless operator, was the fourth Polish crew member.  He is buried in Newark-on-Trent.  The British crew member was Flying Officer Gordon Jenkins Myers, the co-pilot, who lies at rest in Armley Hill Top Cemetery, Leeds.

Ilminster's cemetery on the western slopes of Beacon Hill.  The distinctive CWGC headstones mark the final resting place of Stanislaw Kleybor, Leopold Mielecki, and Jan Brzezinski.

The view from Ilminster's cemetery toward the Blackdown Hills.  Castle Neroche is on the skyline in the centre of the picture. 

Of the Army casualties, 5 were buried in Yeovil with full military honours.  They were Major Harry William Gilbert Staunton, aged 37, and Lieutenant Peter Biles, aged 22, both of the Indian Army Medical Corps together with 3 members of the Royal Corps of Signals - Ronald Oswin Anderson aged 22, Owen Williams aged 19 and Robert Charles Anderson aged 19.  Unfortunately I could find no verifiable or detailed information for the other 17 fatalities. 

Earlier this year I visited the memorial stone which commemorates those lost in this appalling accident.  It is best to walk from the ample and well signposted Forestry Commission car park at Castle Neroche.  On leaving the car park turn left and then left again into Hare Lane, but take care as although the narrow lanes might appear to be quiet they are used by cars and milk tanker lorries.  I saw one tanker which took up the entire width of an extremely narrow stretch of Hare Lane – be aware!  The memorial is a few minutes’ walk down the lane near two gates to your right. The view from the gates gives an impression of how high on the Blackdown Hills the crash site is.  Apparently the wreckage from the Liberator was spread over fields either side of the lane.

The view from the gateway near the memorial in Hare Lane.

The memorial commemorating those lost on RAF Liberator KH126 is beside the tree on the verge of Hare Lane.  Wreaths of poppies are visible in this picture. 

The memorial commemorating those lost on RAF Liberator KH126 on 22nd November 1945.

Even though it is in such an isolated spot the memorial is obviously visited by those paying their respects as I found wreaths and poppies had been laid around it.

Update 20 March 2022.

I recently came upon a document on-line which contains newspaper articles, RAF accident reports, eyewitness statements, and a full list of the tragedy’s victims.  It is a most informative document and very well worth reading.  The link is below.

12.pdf (vanishedlives.uk)

Theresa May's Brexit preparations. Echoes of the surrender of Singapore in1942?

Prime Minister Theresa May and Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond have, to all intents and purposes, refused advice to prepare a plan for a no deal Brexit.  Such a refusal not only plays into the hands of European Union negotiators, but has ominous echoes of the surrender of Singapore in February 1942.

When Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival the British commander in Singapore was asked by Brigadier-General Ivan Simson, his chief engineer, if he could plan and prepare defences against a possible Japanese invasion of the island his answer was no “it would be bad for moral”.  No defences were built, the Japanese did indeed attack, and Percival was forced to surrender Singapore – probably the most catastrophic defeat in British military history.  

By spurning calls to prepare for a no deal Brexit the Prime Minister has trapped herself at the negotiating table.  She could be forced into a disastrous surrender on terms dictated by the European Union – just as Percival’s refusal to prepare meant surrendering on terms dictated by the Japanese.