On Saturday, 27 April, ECG Air Branch was able to provide a battlefield tour to the New Zealand Sinclair family. Purpose: daughter Geal Sinclair and her husband Peter wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father, who himself once was a pilot of a bomber shot down over eastern Netherlands and had jumped off with a parachute. To witness the reconstruction, the Sinclairs flew to the Netherlands especially for this purpose and our head of department and project manager Coen Cornelissen gave them an unforgettable day.

Geal Sinclair is the daughter of Raymond Henderson. Pilot Officer Raymond Henderson, at the time 25 years old and a member of No.75 Royal New Zealand Air Force Squadron, to be precise. To give you an idea, let us take you back to a winter night in 1943, the night between Wednesday 3 and 4 February 1943. The night that the Royal Air Force had Hamburg as its target and sent out a force of 263 bombers. One of these was the four-engined Short Stirling Mk.I BK604 AA-S of 30-year-old Pilot Officer John McCullough from Christchurch, the New Zealand city we know today, unfortunately, from another context. And sitting next to him was co-pilot Ray Henderson from Kemmington, New Zealand.

It already went wrong on the way there ... At exactly ten minutes past eight, a crackling salvo of fire broke the silence high up in the sky. A light appeared in the dark firmament and slowly descended to earth like a raging, uncontrollable fireball. It was a burning aircraft! The Stirling AA-S.

Over the landscape of Twente, night fighter ace Hauptmann Wolfgang Thimmig, the 'Gruppenkommandeur' (Squadron Leader) of the III. Gruppe of Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 had been waiting in his Messerschmitt Bf.110. And at an altitude of 4200 metres, from a distance of 100 to 50 metres, the night fighter managed to set the British bomber on fire with exactly 464 shots from the on-board machine guns and 32 shells from the 2 cm cannons. From under the Plexiglas cockpit roof, Thimmig and his spokesman Steckemetz could see how the enemy started his last death flight...

It flew from Borne in the direction of Bornerbroek, in a general north-westerly direction. After that, the machine turned due west towards Enter. North of Enter the burning air giant descended southwards, flew over Enter with a whooping sound and finally exploded in the air above the Goorseweg.

Henderson and Kimberley, a 21 year old air gunner from Birmingham, landed safely near Bornebroek. Ray Henderson landed with his parachute in a tree and broke some ribs. More to the west, near the Twente Canal, radio operator Sgt. Smith landed, breaking his leg. Also navigator Gibbes must have landed somewhere there. Bomb aimer Sgt. Terence A. Murphy from Matamau, New Zealand did not fare so well. Murphy managed to click his parachute onto his harness, jumped, but was probably too late and crashed north of Enter, near the hamlet of Rectum, near 'Busger op Vollenbroek'. Horrified, the next day local residents saw how the corpse of the unfortunate man, like a pole, stood straight in the ground. He had been drilled up to his waist in a meadow...

A macabre scene of death and destruction was also visible near the wreck. One of the unfortunate ones stood upside down in a woodpile of the sawmill. His boots had disappeared and to the anger of many it was suspected that they had been stolen ... And so four young men found death one February night in 1943 around the Twente town of Enter. They were McCullough the pilot. They were McCullough the pilot, 19-year-old radio operator and gunner Paul Trevayne, British flight engineer Sgt Francis F. Allen and poor Terence Murphy.

Henderson was found together with Kimberley at a farmer's home in Bornerbroek. The police were warned and post commander Arts sent out a patrol. State police officer P. van Luinen was also called. "Last night an English plane crashed near Enter. In our house are two survivors, who will be picked up by the Germans shortly." Immediately Van Luinen jumped on his service bicycle and trotted off to Arts. There he found both Henderson and Kimberly in Bornebroek. Before the two pilots were brought to Borne, Van Luinen quickly took two snapshots of the pair. After that they went to the town hall of Borne and there the Germans came and captured the Allies and took them away.

Now we have already provided several tours and guided tours in the context of the Stirling AA-S. For example to Max Thimmig, grandson of the successful German night fighter. But also to the Trevayne family (Karen Travayne), who themselves come to the Netherlands every year. Recently, Diederick ten Brinke from Enter, who himself is a specialist on the events surrounding this crash, was able to show the Kimberly family around and there are also close and warm contacts with Russell Murphy, the nephew of the fallen bomb aimer.

Today, on behalf of Explosive Clearance Group, our ECG Air Branch Head of Department and Project Manager Coen Cornelissen gave a tour of all the places where it all happened. Geal and Peter Sinclair were accompanied by the Van Luinen brothers. Two sons of the former Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, who himself has long since passed away. They too were curious about what their father had experienced that night. Coen was assisted by Diederick ten Brinke. A lunch organised by the Explosive Clearance Group in Borne calmed the emotions a little. Via Borne, Bornerbroek, the crash site in Enter on Goorseweg, the location where Murphy's parachute jump ended so fatally, the group made their way to the cemetery on Appelhofstraat in Wierden. And so ended an emotional day in dignity and silence at the graves of a couple of young men, who once, a long time ago - yet so close by - gave their lives for a great cause. Our freedom! We shall remember them.