 |
On Saturday 29 March, Bishop Debbie led a service at Thorney Abbey to honour the 39 people who lost their lives during eight separate incidents that took place over Thorney, near Peterborough, between 1941 and 1983.
The first crash, in 1941, involved a German Junker bomber and killed three crew whilst the most recent incident took place in 1981 and killed two airmen from RAF Wittering when two Harrier jump jets collided in the sky over the village.
The day of the service marked the 80th anniversary of a collision which took place at the end of World War Two in 1945. On 29 March 1945, Cpl Robert Louis Phillippe de Bienkiewicz of the Free French Airforce flew his Miles Master MK II training aircraft out of RAF Westwood in Peterborough and collided with a Stirling Bomber from RAF Matching, Essex, carrying seven crew members, all eight lost their lives.
 |
The service included the dedication of a new memorial and rededication of an existing memorial in the presence of national and international representatives of the armed services and guests, together with the local community.
Michael Sly, the chairman of the Thorney Society which organised the event, said "We thought it would be fitting on the 80th anniversary of the 1945 incident to unveil a memorial plaque to the 21 British, French and German airmen that died in skies above the village in the last 80 plus years."