Flight Lt. Robert Coventry, a Canadian born in Oak Bay, B.C., was piloting an RAF Bristol Blenheim again from a coaching mission when the bomber’s engine failed.
Because the story is informed, Coventry managed to steer the plummeting bomber away from a busy faculty in Quedgeley, close to Gloucester, earlier than it crashed in a subject. Coventry died within the flaming wreck.
Now, plans are underway for a brand new memorial stone to be unveiled close to the crash website.
“I feel it is an incredible and great factor,” mentioned Anne Underhill, Coventry’s daughter.
Underhill now lives in Oak Bay, the place the daddy she by no means knew spent half of his childhood.
He was 27 when he crashed on Sept. 23, 1940. Underhill was simply 10 months previous.
She grew up realizing her father had died in a aircraft crash through the struggle and that locals had rushed to the crash website to assist, managing to drag two different surviving crew members from the fuselage.
“Principally that was the story I had as a toddler,” mentioned Underhill.
Nevertheless it wasn’t till the BBC — which had coated the marketing campaign to honour Coventry with the memorial — tracked her down on Vancouver Island that Underhill discovered how her father had prevented crashing into Quedgeley College.
‘I owe my life to him’
Peter Hickman remembers the crash nonetheless.
He was 10 years previous and attending the college on the time. He and different college students rushed out, considering they might be capable of assist.
“I can bear in mind working throughout these fields, and naturally there was the aircraft burning. We stood there completely shocked,” he mentioned in an interview with the BBC. “There have been flames within the cockpit.”
Helen Tracey is among the many individuals who known as for the memorial to Coventry final fall. Her mom, Margaret Cale, was a six-year-old pupil on the faculty in 1940.
“If the aircraft had hit the college on that day, mum would have died and subsequently I might by no means have been born,” Tracey informed the BBC in October.
“I do not understand how else to sum it up — I owe my life to him.”
‘The supreme sacrifice’
Quedgeley City Council has commissioned the memorial, with plans to carry an unveiling ceremony in September.
The plaque names Coventry and notes his RAF title.
It describes him as “a hero who made the supreme sacrifice close to this place on Sept. 23, 1940, and in doing so saving the lives of many youngsters from Quedgeley.”
Underhill has been invited to the ceremony, but it surely’s unclear whether or not journey restrictions as a result of pandemic will nonetheless be in pressure in September.
“It means so much to me, and I would love to have the ability to be there, however who is aware of,” she mentioned.
“I feel it is completely extraordinary and great and my mom have to be dancing round up there, simply to get the popularity,” mentioned Underhill, pointing towards the sky.
As for the heroic actions of her father to keep away from hanging a college, “I might have hoped that might have been the perspective for individuals who had been flyers,” she mentioned.
Do you could have extra so as to add to this story? E-mail [email protected]
Comply with Rafferty Baker on Twitter: @raffertybaker
