My Dad was farming near Upton and My Mum, who was from Bromsgrove, had joined the Land army

John Clements tells us “I read with interest the story about your parents work during the war.

While my parents also met during the war they had nothing to do with the TRE at Malvern, My Dad was farming near Upton and My Mum, who was from Bromsgrove, had joined the Land army – and bingo me and by siblings were the result! The reason I am contacting you is because during last summers lockdown we went on many walks we had not done before – this was one of them and this is what i posted last October on the Malvern History site.

I am sure that with the work you mentioned your father was involved with he must have known some of these people – it was just fortunate that he wasn’t on that plane that night. John. While walking alongside the Wye – from Stowfield to below Symonds Yat rock today I came across this memorial. I looked up Alan Dower Blumlein when I got home and it would would appear he was an amazing electronics engineer.

He sadly died on June 7th 1942, while testing the H2S airborne radar system, when the Halifax bomber caught fire and crashed near Symonds Yat.

The plane was on a flight from Defford when the engine set on fire, part of the wing fell off and the plane flipped over before crashing, killing everyone on board. From what I understand the radar system was largely being developed at TRE. I am sure there will be some of you out there who may be relatives or may have known people who have related stories about this incident. Apparently the incident was kept secret for years after the event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Blumlein.  There is also a memorial window, opened by Sir Bernard Lovell, in Goodrich Castle and another one in the TRE museum at Croom Park where the bomber was based.

I happen to have some of the ‘window’ in a box, apparently lots of it landed round here when they were developing it. There is also some bits of plane wreckage – the story goes there was a practice bombing range on Longdons marsh at castlemorton and 2 American planes collided scattering bits of wreckage far and wide. John