Doodlebug landing that had everyone talking

MARY JONES, from Caversham, has shed some light on a doodlebug crash near Henley during the last war.

She contacted me after reading an appeal for information from Tyrone Trimmings on this page two weeks ago.

Tyrone was reading a book called Women In Intelligence about photo interpreters at RAF Medmenham when he came across a passage that said a doodlebug crashed in late June or early July 1944.

Ms Jones, 90, says: “I lived at Upper Culham at the time and as far as I know it was the last doodlebug that ever fell.

“It landed at Golders Green where there was a row of homes called Golders Cottages.

“A lady called Mrs Silvey lived in one of them and she was looking out of her bedroom window at the time of the crash and the force of the landing broke the glass and blinded her.

“My parents lived in Wargrave at the time and everyone was talking about it. I wasn’t there but my family said it was quite a big thing.

“It was said that they thought that it was aiming at the satellite airfield at Upper Culham.”

Tyrone, who is an IT technician at Gillotts School in Henley, has received some feedback himself.

He says: “A colleague mentioned how her mother, now deceased, told her she used to work at Warren Row and she remembered a doodlebug landing right near there.

“My father remembers many things from the war. He asked me the other day did I get any feedback about the doodlebug and I said, ‘no, we will find out in the Henley Standard’. He then said that he remembers hearing it and that he thought it landed in Greys and some cattle were killed.

“He also remembers some dog fights over Henley and the bomber crash that was featured in the Diary a while ago as he was at school when it came overhead.

“There was some rare colour film of VE Day that was filmed in Henley with a shot down Friday Street, I think, and he said I was up a tree in the distance when that was shot!

“We actually had it on video at one point — probably still have somewhere. It’s often shown when there’s a documentary about this country on VE Day. Someone in this town must have been the only person with Kodak colour film and filmed that day.”