In her latest book "Letters to Hannah", local author Victoria Seymour reminds us of the day in 1940 when a Nazi bomber became well and truly 'grounded' here in Battle.
In early September, the crashed Heinkel aircraft and German Air Force equipment was put on public display at Summerfields, in Hastings, to raise money for the Spitfire fund.

Ivor White, then aged 14, had just started work and he witnessed the moving of the German plane to its exhibition point. “On my way to work at a farm near the Powdermills, in Battle, I saw an RAF transporter, with a Heinkel 111 bomber on it, wedged between the banks of the stretch of road we called Leg of Mutton Hill. The driver had misjudged the wingspan of the aircraft and although the outer parts of the wings had been removed the load was still too wide to pass through the cutting. I managed to climb inside the plane’s cockpit, while the lads were digging it out. Such was my boyhood enthusiasm for war souvenirs, had there been any unattached bits and pieces in the cockpit they would have joined my collection”.   

Janet Morris, who now lives in Canada,  was reading the above account in Victoria's new book and remembered that her father, Les Englefield,  had taken  photographs of the scene in the lane near her home. She hopes that Victoria will be able to include one in the next reprint of "Letters to Hannah"