Douglas Boston crash, Shakespeare Cliff, Dover 1944

[John]

The following article and photograph appeared in the May 1990 issue of 'The Link', an internal TML publication.

On the morning of April 6th, Plant Operator Albert Berry got the shock of his life. Working from a jack-up barge on the reclamation works at Lower Shakespeare Cliff, he was manoeuvering a mechanical grab in order to clean up the sea bed. Suddenly, instead of a boulder, he dredged up an aircraft engine. Where it came from was something of a mystery until TML security man John Shilson got to hear of it. Twenty years ago his thirteen year old son Philip had been told by an old Railway employee (who had worked at Shakespeare Halt when trains still stopped there) about a burning plane he had seen crash into the sea nearby in early 1944. It was a Douglas Boston, an American twin engine light bomber which had just failed to make it back from a raid. Sadly, the pilot died, but the rest of the crew was saved, and although most of the airframe was salvaged immediately, one of the engines was never recovered.

Philip then resolved to find it, and spent two summers scouring the area at low water - even when that meant getting up in the middle of the night. He located the undercarriage and some other bits, which he donated to a museum, and even found some engine valves, but never the fourteen cylinder radial engine itself. TML were able to bring together Philip, now 33 and still living nearby, and the object of his youthful quest. Our picture shows the engine, remarkably free of barnacles and other signs of its immersion, on the jack-up barge with John Shilson, Albert Berry and a very happy Philip Shilson. As we went to press TML were discussing the final destination of the engine with the relevant authorities.

[John]

An article in the following edition of 'The Link'.

New Home for Engine
Last month we reported the discovery during work on the Sea Wall of an engine from a Douglas Boston Bomber which had crashed in early 1944. At a special ceremony on Friday May 18th, the Pratt & Witney engine, complete with propeller was donated to the Brenzett Aeronautical Museum on Romney Marsh. The Museum, which opened in 1972 has a unique collection of wartime equipment recovered from aircraft crash sites and the engine will be reunited with other parts from the same plane donated by Philip Shilson, the Aycliffe resident whose fruitless search for the engine during his boyhood was outlined in the last issue.

The picture shows Bill Baker, Chairman of the Museum Trustees accepting the engine from John King, TML Tunnels Director. Bill Baker said, "We are most grateful for this engine and intend to clean it up and display it close to the remains of a Battle of Britain Hurricane. We shall also carry out further research in both the bomber and the crew who flew it on its last fateful mission".

[John]

And just to round things off, here's the engine at Brenzett a couple of years ago. Standing out in the rain, tastefully displayed alongside a dustbin and rubbish sacks..