

Filename: Jim_Walsh_recalls_dead_airman_as_a_child_during_WW2_v2.mp3 ( download )
Size: 367.7 KB
Recording type: audio/mpeg
53 seconds
Jim Walsh while interviewing Tauranga Resident Group Captain John R Gard'ner, recalled the following.
"Did you have any lucky charms on your plane? Or anything like that?
You know, some people have a red handkerchief...I recall as a boy, coming across a crash site in England and they’d landed in, er this a Messerschmitt landed in a churchyard, I remember seeing the pilot hanging on the er all burnt on er members of his body hanging from the trees. Before the police cordoned off we as young fellas, I was only say about 8, 9 or 10 at the time fossicked around and we picked up a shell, a canon shell. The head of the canon shell had been fired and it was just empty and inside it was rosary beads. So obviously the pilot was ... Ah "
"no I had nothing like that" (John Rush Gardner replies)