Stories

At the outbreak of war in 1939 Perdiswell had been a Municipal Airport since the 1920's, the first Municipal Airport in the world.

Perdiswell was quickly turned into a military base and was receiving Fairey Battle fighter bombers from the Austin Motor Works at Longbridge.

The crashed Dakota

In 1941 a flight training school was established with young pilots coming from all over the British Empire to learn to fly.

All sorts of aircraft used the field for emergency landings ,sometimes with spectacular, and sadly fatal, crashes.

In September 1942 an American Douglas Dakota transport plane made an emergency landing but came in too fast for the grass field and crashed through the railings on to the Bilford Road and into the City rubbish dump.

VIP passengers

In the co-pilots seat was Clark Gable, the handsome film star, but as the RAF Sergeant who helped him out wrote to me in 1988, Gable was not the glamorous pilot he had just watched at the cinema winning the war.

The plane was called "Idiots Delight" a pre-war film planned for Gable and the gorgeous Hedy Lamar, which was abandoned when her parents refused to let their schoolgirl daughter take part.

Also on board was General Spaatz Commander of the US Air Force newly arrived in Europe.

He unfortunately broke his ankle and was heard to grumble something about not crossing the Atlantic to land in the town's trash tip.

The plane had taken off from Pershore with a film crew making a gunnery training film.

To the mess after the mess

The VIPs were taken to the Officers Mess for something stronger than tea.

Clarke Gable during WW2

I remember two British RAF officers telling my mother that Clarke Gable had been their guest and she pretended to swoon.

It was the first time I saw such a performance.

Bilford Road was blocked for some days until the plane could be dismantled and taken away on a 'Queen Mary' transporter.