Year Five and Six went to Cowleaze Wood at Christmas Common on Friday 19th November. The children have been studying the Second World War in History and wanted to pay their respects to the seven men of Squadron 51 who died at Cowleaze Wood in March 1944. The men had been flying in a Halifax Bomber that evening in the raids of Nuremberg in East Germany. They had made their way back to the U.K. and were on course for their home in Yorkshire having flown thousands of miles across Europe. Unfortunately, they flew off course and it is unknown why they crashed in the Chiltern Hills, Oxfordshire.
As the plaque reads on their monument the saddest part of it all is – ‘They were so nearly home’.
Thank you to the seven men of Squadron 51,
Year Five and Six.
