BOMBER CRASHES ON SHOPS

Southland Times, Issue 24154, 17 June 1940, Page 4

BOMBER CRASHES ON SHOPS

CREW INCINERATED FIERCE FIRE AFTER ACCIDENT LIVES OF TWO MEN LOST (United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, June 15. Two shops in the main street of Akaroa were burned when an AirForce bomber crashed on them and burst into flames at 11.30 today. The two occupants of the plane were incinerated. The victims were:— Leading Aircraftsmen John Lindsay McFadyen, of Blackball, West Coast, and Francis Morris McFarlane, of Nelson. Tire latter was a married man. As the machine was circling low over the township its wing was seen to drop sharply and a moment later it crashed, bursting into flames as it struck the buildings, one of which was occupied by Mr A. J. Brown, barber, and the other by Mr A. E. Kingston, draper. Violent explosions, suggesting that the petrol tanks of the aeroplane were bursting, occurred and the buildings burned fiercely. A neighbouring shop, occupied by R. F. C. Stewart, chemist, also caught fire but the fire brigade saved the building. CHILDREN INJURED Valmai Dann,- aged 11 years, and Nathalie Ramsay, aged 13 years, who were near the scene, suffered burns and shock. Valmai Dann was taken to hospital, but Nathalie Ramsay was not severely burnt. There were several men' in the barber’s shop at the time of the crash and one man was even in the chair having a shave, but all escaped injury. Just before the crash the machine flew low over the golf house at Akaroa wh?re Mrs J. Wright lives. “When I saw the plane I thought that there was something wrong,” said Mrs Wright. “It was very low indeed and was flying in a very steep bank. Then it appeared to turn on its back and dived down into the town. We thought it was making for the sea, but the plane missed reaching the water by about 30 yards. We raced down to the main street and found the two shops to be an inferno. The fire brigade was on the scene very smartly and, after a time, had the blaze in the chemist’s shop under control, but the barber’s shop continued to burn for two or three hours. When it flew over our place the machine was making an awful roaring noise.”

BARBER’S EXPERIENCE “I was shaving a man at the time of the crash,” said Mr Brown, occupier of the barber’s shop, “when I heard a plane overhead and it sounded very low. The next thing I knew it had crashed right into the shop and the whole show went up in flames. It seemed that a wing hit the side wall of the shop in Cross street and then the petrol tanks apparently burst. The wing came through the wall and smashed everything to smithereens. ‘There were six men in the shop, but they all were lucky, no one suffering any injury. Apart from the fright of a lifetime the man in the chair was like the rest of us —out of the shop in a flash, with one side of his face shaved and the other still covered in lather. As for myself, I went so fast out of the place that the razor was still in my hand when I got home. “There was no chance of saving anything in the shop, and there was no possibility of getting to the men in the plane. Ten seconds after the crash everything was a mass of flames. All we saw were two helmets in the tangled wreckage and there was not a sign of movement in the machine.”