I especially like how Dr. Felton visited the site of the incident, showing "then and now" photos. It's really neat to know that the very fence posts that helped stop the bomber are still there.
The image at the end of an incendiary bomb in the loft is pretty chilling. Here in Exeter there was a gentleman who discovered one after a raid and put the thing in his cupboard with the intention of handing it in to the police later that day... he forgot about it. caused quite a stir when his family found it in there a few decades later! Great video.
When I was a student living in North London in the mid 00s our neighbours were putting in an extension at the back of their house - and found a German bomb! Bomb disposal came and told us what had happened and we all decamped to the local pub (we were students - and mused over the potential fact that all our belongings might soon be blown up by the literal Nazis). We were back home in only a couple of hours. Was quite remarkable how quickly they worked!
@@BennettIsAmazing There is no week, without an finding of WWII air ammo, here in Germany. With so many "Blindgänger", I'm wonderin' how the bomber campaign worked...
There have been incidents where the US Navy has had to shoot down a friendly aircraft when it didn't crash as expected after the crew bailed out, and there is also the USAF "Cornfield Bomber", an F-106 interceptor that belly-landed after the pilot ejected. After landing, the aircraft was in such good shape the Air Force later returned it to service.
Supposedly the English Electric Lightning's only air to air kill was an errant Harrier whose pilot had ejected, but googling it again it might not have actually happened.
Dr. Felton, you always post the most interesting content and some that may include obscure details... that I truly enjoy. Many thanks for your work. - From across the pond.
I worked as a Meter reader for 34 years (starting with the old Yorkshire Electrcity Board) and a farmer near Barrow on Number had yard-long pieces of shrapnel in an outbuilding from the bombing of Hull just across the Humber. He told me about ducking for cover one night as stuff was coming through a hedge. An old lady in Goxhill told me there was five miles of fire one night across the river and about black carbon falling in gardens. Robin Witting
My father was born in Cambridge and lived in nearby Lovell Road during WWII. He wrote "...One day my mother collected me from Shirley School in great excitement. A German bomber had been attached by British fighters over London and the crew had bailed out (over Ealing it was said). However the bomber had continued to fly on without a pilot until it ran out of fuel, then glided down and 'landed' almost undamaged on some allotments close to St Georges church/Milton Road/Frazer Road. We were allowed to inspect the bomber which seemed to be undamaged apart from bent propellors. We had to pay 6d to charity for the privelidge of seeing it..."
I remember my Dad telling me this story of an unmanned bomber "Landing" near his home. He lived about 300 metres away. He would have been six years old at the time. Dad passed away 3 years ago, he would have loved to have seen this film. Thank you.
Like you I'm absolutely stunned, I guess in a war that large and lengthy, these storie are bound to present, and who better to hear it from !! Thank you Dr Mark !!
I've been reading books and watching documentaries about WW 2 for 25 years and you always find these amazing stories that I know nothing about. Thanks for the high quality informative content Dr. Felton.
I think the most impressive parts is the accuracy. Just about every single historical channel I watch has a comment or two correcting small/large mistakes. Mark seems to be accurate almost all the time. I’d expect as much from a historian but it still impresses me
Fascinating story! Lived in Cambridge for the last 12 years and never heard this one. I remember a few years back when they were redeveloping the train station there were occasions when the works had to be halted and the railway closed due to finding unexploded bombs in the excavations. A slightly better excuse for cancelling trains than leaves on the tracks!
Extraordinary ! Special mention to the "then and now" photographs, and the map of the area of the crash, that doubles the value of your presentation. This is living History, my favorite, and of the greatest quality. Thanks gentleman, see you soon for more !
The Dornier 215 and Dornier 217 are my favourite Luftwaffe bombers, sleek and business like. Both also had nightfighter variants that were quite successful too. What an amazing story from Dr Felton!
@@krakenpots5693 yes! If they had developed the 'Amerika bomber' as an equivalent to our Lancs and Halifaxes instead of pouring resources into Do 17, 215, and 217's, and the Me 110 and 210/410's the outcome may have been different. And don't even get me started on the He 177!
My first Mark Felton story and I enjoyed. My appreciation of history and warfare often leans heavily to single incidents and individual or personal stories. It doesn't all need to be blood and guts.
But seriously, these are important stories to be remembered and told. Mr. Felton is doing an incredibly valuable work. The vast majority of Americans have no idea the dangers British citizens faced and these stories just scratch the surface. My father piloted B-24s out of Shipdham and once had 3 x 100 lb bombs hung up in the bomb bay that they didn't know about until they accidentally dropped through the bay doors into some poor unsuspecting English woman's back yard! Fortunately they didn't go off but they were armed and some brave bloke from munitions disposal would have had to come in and remove them. Keep up the amazing work Mr. F!
What a great story. The way that Dornier came down can only be regarded as the fortunes of war. Sometimes, luck is all you have. Charging admission made me smile, too. I always look forward to your content. Excellent job, Dr. Felton.
Great story. I'm 76 and have read, heard and viewed innumerable stories about the war. As a child I knew about a German bomber that had ditched its bomb on a wood behind our house as it tried to flee back across the channel. But I'd never heard about this 'ghost' bomber before.
My father describes a German aircraft landing without crew landing in his school grounds coming to rest in the cricket nets. (Newcastle area) He described one policeman trying to keep a swarm of kids off it.
Haha oh that gives quite a mental image (1940-41 approx Newcastle kids n one copper)… How big was this swarm? Was this a copper or a piggy? I need to know more about this historic encounter.
Gotta say, just looking at the title of this video, I’m like man if I had to describe Mark Felton’s channel to someone using 6 words, it’d be “World War 2 German ghost bomber.” Like nothing is more Mark Felton and I love it.
Brilliant, I love these kind of stories. We are in Dresden, incredibly sad as to what happened to this beautiful city. The city is now completely restored after 77 years.
My family have lived in Cambridge for several generations and as a kid in the 1960s and 70s heard lots of stories from the war. This was one of them! Nice to get some first class historical research as background to those stories. My Dad who was 13 and his pals went to see it but were turned away by the Police and Home Guard.
@@anniechrisbendy6000 Sorry Annie, but I don't think I know him. I have about a hundred or more cousins in the area so it's possible I am related though.
Yet another incredible story! I don't know how Dr Felton does this. At least the German crew didn't kill any civilians or do anything stupid with weapons and the fact that that bomber didn't hit the residential area homes is a miracle.
The whole idea was to do damage. I'm a little surprised the crew didnt drop all their bombs at once then bail out......but they thought the plane was going down. How far could it have been flown after dropping it's 9000lbs of weapons?
@@bradsanders6954 I think if they thought the plane was doomed, it would start to go down. Bailing out is undoubtedly far harder to do and much more dangerous if it even can be done, when the plane is in a dive. If it had crashed as they thought, the ordnance was on board anyway, like a kamikaze without pilot. And I suppose you don't really want to bail out straight a huge stick of incendiary bombs. Sounds pretty risky to me.
I always find myself shaking my head after watching your videos. This one reminds me of the DC3 that landed itself in a belly landing somewhere in Missouri after it ran out of fuel and it's crew bailed out.
A tale nicely, not to mention very well, told Mark! Definitely up to your usual high standards! I particularly liked the bit about the original fenceposts at the end!
Really a nice story again, thanks for all the informing but also entertaining content to Mr. Felton! I love the fact that these gardening lots in cambridge still exist, and from what you can see, they are still in use and well preserved!
Never heard this story, fascinating. Love the picture of that bomb at the end, imagine finding that in your Grandads loft! Thanks Mark, you never fail to inform and educate.
The National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH has a huge section of a shot down B17's tail that was found as part of a barn in Germany long after WW2 ended.
Really interesting story. That satellite view really does show just how lucky people were that night, it could have come down anywhere but comes down in an allotment with enough room to slide to a halt? Someone must have been smiling on them that night. I really enjoyed the before and after photos and I enjoyed you visiting the site. That alone has got me to subscribe to you. Would love to see more videos like this where you go to the sites with before and after shots.
Dr Felton You never cease to amaze me at these very interesting and unknown stories you always find. I thought I new a great deal about WW2 . Next to your knowledge I know very little. Thank you . The best REAL History lessons around courtesy of Dr. Mark Felton
Stories like this one are why I get excited when I get a notification that youve posted a new story. I love reading about the European theater during WW2 but you always come up with something ive never heard of. Thanks
Seriously your channel brings back that nostalgic feel of the old war documentaries that used to air on History Television like back in the days of Anne Medina with History and History on film. As a child of the 90's your style and format brings me back to happy and simple times. For all the horrors that befell upon the world during the second world war there are some truly heartwarming and cherichable moments like this when everyone can take a step back and appreciate the irony at how a weapon of war carrying many munitions of malice ended up parking itself in the safest place possible. This was truly a delightful little snippet of history thank you ❤
Amazing! Would make a great film. So many incidents are forgotten in the mists of time. The thought of a 'ghost' bomber with a full-load, lumbering towards a random landing somewhere in England, is chilling.
Mark felton research is often in the highest quality which made one wonder....is he a time traveller, doing interviews to captured luftwaffe aircrews and local townfolks. Another oustanding job.
And a place traveler too - some of his recent videos have involved traveling to the location of an incident to see it now. WWII history must be a lot more interesting in the UK, the place things actually happened and remnants are still visible. Colorado, USA doesn't have much, though I've heard of a few WWII-era plane wrecks (B-17s I think) in the mountains not too far from here from training accidents. I'm not a strong enough hiker to go see them though, they're very remote.
Thanks Mark, for such an excellent account of this story. I have a personal interest in this: Using the information that you gave , I traced the flight path backwards and.... At the time of this incident I would have been a frightened little 6y/o huddled together with my Mother and two sisters in the front room of our house, under a Morrison Shelter - a steel table with steel mesh sides - as this plane passed directly overhead. I lived in Mill Road, midway between Madras Road and Hobart Road and your details indicate that that is the point where it crossed Mill Road. I reckon that by that time its altitude would have been less than 200 feet and falling rapidly.
That really is a miracle landing. As Dr. Mark points out it could’ve killed so many had it crashed directly into houses. Mrs. Riggleford’s concrete fence posts are among those many unnamed Britons still deserving of some honour from Her Majesty‘s Government for their contribution to victory.
Nono its perfectly British for them to remain almost unknown. These where stout upper-lipped english-posts who where in the right place at the right time, and did the same thing any other British fence post would have done 😁
Concur. I was wondering how you knew the crew's names, which was revealed later when they were captured after bailing out. Still leaves open the question of why there were no reports of a low flying plane.
Dr. Felton I believe you are one of a kind and are 1 of a minute few that deserve ever single like/subscriber. However I sense that monetary gains are not why you are doing such phenomenal research and presentation of such interesting content.;-)
Marvelous story. I love Felton's work and research. In 1940 I was evacuated from Finsbury Park in London to Knebworth in Hertfordshire, not far north of London, and we went to school in the village hall. As we came home across the fields one wintry afternoon a twin-engined German bomber flew very low above our heads and we all scattered across the snow. We could see the black crosses on its wings. I ran all the way home and told Mr Primett, the air raid warden who I was billeted with. He said not to worry and that they would be halfway to France by now and certainly they would be back! I remember before D-Day the ammunition and gear stacked all along the country lanes under the cover of the hedgerows and trees around the villages, under open-ended tin Nissen huts. All long ago now.
Absolutely fascinating. When you said that the concrete posts were still in place a tingle went down my spine. I wonder how many in the area today appreciate their significance?
There must be hundreds of interesting stories in England that we never hear about, when regarding the German bombing of the U.K. Thanks for sharing this one.
Most of the content I watch on youtube is military history. However, whenever I see a new video from you a big smile comes across my face. My father is also a huge fan. We find ourselves frequently discussing your latest videos once a week.
I have some scavenged parts from a Stirling bomber "MacRoberts reply" that went down in Denmark after being damaged by flak in Germany, by chance i found them in a thrift store, they had been converted to a inkwell with the date of the crash ingraved, after some online research i found the story behind it.
Great video Dr. Felton... and it's not even Halloween yet. A ghostly pilot perhaps? Jane Rigglesford is such a delicious name for a character in a novel.
Fascinating story well researched and presented as always. I am surprised that Dr Felton has not become a British TV regular! At age 70 I have been brought up on stories of WW2 from family members and this is just like one of those!
I know what you mean! I was born in '64 and growing up it was like the war was still happening! Shrapnel collection in the cupboard, wartime recipe books, ARP warden's tin bowler in the garage. All family stories started with "In the war..." The psychological impact of those years was HUGE! It affected three generations of my family. One of my favourite dinners is a sausage stew taken from a wartime recipe book. It only has four ingredients but it's gorgeous! Plus, if i hear the phrase "Make do and mend." one more time I'll scream! 🤣
A worthwhile video, again. I especially appreciate the "then and now" photos and hope you'll incorporate more of them into your subsequent videos, Mark.
For a moment I was thinking Dorsal Gunnur was a very apt name for a German bomber crewman. Great upload Mark thanks for even more interesting information
Reminds me of the USAAF B-24 Liberator bomber that made a decent crash landing on its own in the North African desert, 1943. Its crew had parachuted before the plane ran out of fuel but they all died in the desert. Photographs of the bomber, the "Lady be good" shows the plane broke in two at the end of its landing but had the crew remained onboard, they probably would have survived with the water and food stored on the plane and its radios still working. However, it was also during the dead of night when they decided to bail out, having overflown their base and no clue what their position was. Then there are two ghost planes courtesy of the RFC (later RAF) and the RAF. During a mission, Manfred "The Red Baron" Von Richthofen and his flight were surprised by a British two man reconnaisance plane. The German fighters broke formation and ganged up on its tail, riddling the plane with bullets. However, the British plane did not go down and continued its level flight towards the German lines. After Von Richthofen and his men had landed, they were informed that the plane they encountered had made a perfect crash landing behind German lines. Both the pilot and navigator were killed by the hail of bullets from the German fighters. The other pilots thought this was a bad omen, the fact that the British plane had ignored their deadly fire and continued its mission. The Red Baron shrugged it off and toasted to the dead British crew, saying: "That's the way to go! Flying till the last drop of fuel and the last drop of blood." Another German flying ace, Adolf Galland, encountered his British ghost plane during the Battle of Britain in 1940. After hearing over the radio the panicked voices of a flight of Luftwaffe pilots who were flying Stukas and were blasted out of the sky by the RAF, Galland, flying in his Bf-109, spotted a lone British Hurricane. He dove onto the plane and shot at it till it was on fire. The stricken Hurricane started to circle, losing altitude at a steady rate but not crashing. Intrigued, Galland pulled his fighter next to the burning Hurricane, trying to get a look at the pilot. He was shocked to see the pilot was dead, the controls apparently still in his frozen, dead hands. Galland noted later in his memoirs "I did not have the guts to give it a mercy salvo."
There's other stories of pilotless planes landing relatively intact as well. Probably the best - though peacetime - was a Convair F-106 Delta Dart fighter jet that got into an unrecoverable spin over Montana in 1970. Pilot ejected, the change in CG and force of ejection caused the aircraft to return to stable flight. Uncontrolled but level and descending slowly, it touched down gently and skidded to a stop in a cornfield with almost no damage. It was repaired and put back into service, eventually flown again by the same pilot - surely the only time in history a pilot has ejected from an airplane and flown the same aircraft again. The aircraft is now preserved at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. I believe The History Guy has done a video on it. Another story I once heard - this one a general aviation situation - was where a pilot of a small plane (a Mooney if I remember right) passed out due to carbon monoxide poisoning. The uncontrolled plane gear-up landed similar to this bomber, pilot relatively unhurt - I think the windshield broke allowing the cockpit to air out and fresh air revived the pilot. Plane was totaled but an incredible story of luck for the pilot to survive.
There is also the story of a US Air force air refuelling KC-97G that took off from Plattsbug New York state on Decembre 10th 1962. A fire broke out and the 10 men crew was ordered to bail out after the plane was put on a north course. One crew member was lost because his chute did not open while the aircraft flew more than 1000 miles before "landing" in a remote region of Québec province. Some equipment was later retrieved by the Air force from the almost intact aircraft that was then partially dismantled over the years.
One remarkable "ghost plane" incident occurred in 1950 and involved a Convair B-36 bomber. Three of the bomber's six engines caught fire off the coast of British Columbia and the other engines began losing power. The cause was an over-rich fuel mixture resulting from ice build-up in the carburetors. With the plane losing altitude, the crew set the auto pilot on a circular course out over the Pacific and bailed out. As the B-36 descended into warmer air, the carburetors became free of ice and power was restored. The crewless bomber gained altitude and circled back over the coast, just clearing the mountains, and flew deep into the interior of British Columbia before finally running out of fuel and crashing in the wilderness. The plane was apparently fairly intact, as the U.S. military came in four years later and used explosives to destroy it. The crash was also notable in that it was one of the first "broken arrow" incidents - this B-36 was carrying an atomic bomb with the plutonium core removed.
Brilliant video from Dr Felton. I used to live in Cambridge and know that area well . Great seeing history in places you know . Thanks for this insightful story.
What an amazing story. The autopilot worked flawlessly and probably landed better than any pilot could do in a ditch landing scenario. Lol. It’s also amazing that officers weren’t flying the plane. Just nco’s.
The RAF did this too but was based more on 'Class' grounds, the upper echelons of the RAF couldn't believe that a pilot who came from a 'lower' or 'middle'-class background would make a suitable officer. But it wasn't just pilots. Early in the War when Bomber Command aircrew were in low in number, and still at that time carrying out daylight ops, a number of ground-based men who repaired/maintained Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys and Handley Page Hampdens were seconded as air-gunners, but still having the same rate of pay - getting any extra and recognition of ops carried out came in later. These men were often only given very short notice that they would be required for an operation.
@@shed66215 I see comments of interest, and let my thoughts just run ..... I suspect the pre-war RAF officer's pay did not cover his expenses, so his family was expected to top it up, so obviously people with insufficient family income would struggle if commissioned. ...... Cranwell was an expensive education for which fees were paid. ...... Pre-war NCOs could learn to fly through auxiliary squadrons, I believe. Once war started, and many pre-war officers were dead or POWs, so private income no longer fully applied, making it easier to commission more NCOs. More recently, 2 of my cousins were officers in the Grenadier Guards, following their father, who won a Military Cross at a river crossing attack in Italy, after service in North Africa ( Longstop Hill ). ...... London is horrendously expensive socially, but that side of the family were county bankers, tin smelters, railway entrepreneurs, shipowners, and in an age when everyone knew everyone else locally, financed many things, and they now have an estate ( agricultural and industrial ) to call on. ...... One retired as a Colonel, and is Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall. ...... If you watched Biden and the rest arrive for the summit in Cornwall last year, you would have seen him, complete with sword. ...... The Queen had to cut a cake in Cornwall, was unimpressed with the cake knife provided, so called upon Edward for his sword, saying that it would be more exciting. ...... Not bad for a lady of 95 years of age! ...... A Lord-Lieutenant is unpaid, but it runs in the family, as his father was High Sherrif, and his grandfather was also Lord-Lieutenant. The Bolithos started from quite humble beginnings, and were tanners in the early 18th century, but Cornwall was full of tin and copper, and became THE mining centre of Europe in the first 2/3rds of the 19th century, and the Bolithos were canny Cornishmen who were born at the perfect moment, and knew what to do with the opportunity. ...... Large numbers were officers in the service, and both my great-grandfather and his son gave their lives in WW1. ...... Two were Royal Flying Corps officers, one of who pioneered the development of air-to-ground artillery spotting by radio, was a spook in WW2, and when the author Douglas Reeman moored his yacht beside his in the Channel Islands, gave his name to the Richard Bolitho series of novels. ...... Another, a commando, was killed by the French at Oran on HMS Walney, as they tried to seize the port, and the family gave a public house in Gulval near Penzance to the Coldstream Guards Association in his memory. There is a tradition that if you hold wealth locally, you must look after the local people, and serve in whatever way you can, and when your family's blood is well-soaked into that same ground over hundreds of years, it feels like home in a way few people understand today, as cities, television, international travel, and so on, dilute the link between people and land.
The US Army Aircorps had an NCO pilot program as well. In fact famous fighter pilot Chuck Yeager - later the pilot who first flew faster than the speed of sound, and still later a General in the USAF - earned his wings as a non-com.
If you even wanna call it that, i believe these airplanes had some very primitive forms of autopilots,nothing like something installed on a modern 777 today,lol, now that will land a plane all on its own , this was probably sheer luck. When Richtofen (Red Baron) was killed that plane pretty much landed itself and although it hit hard and broke the undercarriage it was pretty much all there,from the forensics they did on him they strongly believe he was toast way before he landed so it does happen,this Dornier was probably configured and trimmed for level flight and it finally ran out of fuel and just landed. This was probably one of those instances like when someone trows a wad of paper and it hits 3 things before going in the waste bin,that wont happen again anytime soon,lol
I especially like how Dr. Felton visited the site of the incident, showing "then and now" photos. It's really neat to know that the very fence posts that helped stop the bomber are still there.
Iwas thinking the same-its a video of an 'After the Battle,Then & Now' article.
I love "Then and Now" pictures like these. Neat stuff! 😁👍
Its Awesome to see and would appreciate Mark doing this more often :) Very lucky to be able to do that, im jealous .
Just incase any other planes come along of course.
@@nekoprincess4130 can never be to careful
The image at the end of an incendiary bomb in the loft is pretty chilling.
Here in Exeter there was a gentleman who discovered one after a raid and put the thing in his cupboard with the intention of handing it in to the police later that day... he forgot about it. caused quite a stir when his family found it in there a few decades later!
Great video.
It’s a Brit thing. Check out what happened to Oliver Cromwell’s head
Can agree, this is an all too common occurrence in both the U.K. and mainland Europe.
Dementia.
When I was a student living in North London in the mid 00s our neighbours were putting in an extension at the back of their house - and found a German bomb! Bomb disposal came and told us what had happened and we all decamped to the local pub (we were students - and mused over the potential fact that all our belongings might soon be blown up by the literal Nazis). We were back home in only a couple of hours. Was quite remarkable how quickly they worked!
@@BennettIsAmazing There is no week, without an finding of WWII air ammo, here in Germany. With so many "Blindgänger", I'm wonderin' how the bomber campaign worked...
Dude you're such an inspiration! Real gold standard of history content to aspire to!
And he have the coolest intro music of the whole RUclips
@@doncarlodivargas5497 by far ;)
Agreed !
Hear! hear!
I second that motion
There have been incidents where the US Navy has had to shoot down a friendly aircraft when it didn't crash as expected after the crew bailed out, and there is also the USAF "Cornfield Bomber", an F-106 interceptor that belly-landed after the pilot ejected. After landing, the aircraft was in such good shape the Air Force later returned it to service.
Ive actually seen the Cornfield Bomber in person
🔥🔥
Supposedly the English Electric Lightning's only air to air kill was an errant Harrier whose pilot had ejected, but googling it again it might not have actually happened.
Not bad for the so called "Flying Coffin" of the Cold War era Luftwaffe.
@@michaelandreipalon359 the F-104 was a different plane.
Dr. Felton, you always post the most interesting content and some that may include obscure details... that I truly enjoy.
Many thanks for your work. - From across the pond.
I worked as a Meter reader for 34 years (starting with the old Yorkshire Electrcity Board) and a farmer near Barrow on Number had yard-long pieces of shrapnel in an outbuilding from the bombing of Hull just across the Humber. He told me about ducking for cover one night as stuff was coming through a hedge. An old lady in Goxhill told me there was five miles of fire one night across the river and about black carbon falling in gardens. Robin Witting
My father was born in Cambridge and lived in nearby Lovell Road during WWII. He wrote "...One day my mother collected me from Shirley School in great excitement. A German bomber had been attached by British fighters over London and the crew had bailed out (over Ealing it was said). However the bomber had continued to fly on without a pilot until it ran out of fuel, then glided down and 'landed' almost undamaged on some allotments close to St Georges church/Milton Road/Frazer Road. We were allowed to inspect the bomber which seemed to be undamaged apart from bent propellors. We had to pay 6d to charity for the privelidge of seeing it..."
There is nothing anywhere on any medium that is so consistently as fascinating
and informative as this channel, Nothing. Nowhere! Thank you Mark.
Truly.
I remember my Dad telling me this story of an unmanned bomber "Landing" near his home. He lived about 300 metres away. He would have been six years old at the time. Dad passed away 3 years ago, he would have loved to have seen this film. Thank you.
Insane that it was on auto pilot and made a perfect landing with out any crew members...forgotten history no more..thank you Mark Felton!
Says a lot about the airworthiness of the plane.
@@JRobbySh Decades before the Americans had their Cornfield Bomber.
What were the chances? Thankfully no-one was hurt.
Like you I'm absolutely stunned, I guess in a war that large and lengthy, these storie are bound to present, and who better to hear it from !!
Thank you Dr Mark !!
It’s almost amazing as the B-17 that made a perfect wheels down landing at its home airfield after the crew bailed out
I've been gobbling up all the WW2 content I could get for 20 years. I've never heard a peep about this. Mark Felton goes DEEP.
I've been reading books and watching documentaries about WW 2 for 25 years and you always find these amazing stories that I know nothing about. Thanks for the high quality informative content Dr. Felton.
I am always so impressed how you turn up these stories that I've never heard of and then share so much info about them in such high quality videos.
I think the most impressive parts is the accuracy. Just about every single historical channel I watch has a comment or two correcting small/large mistakes. Mark seems to be accurate almost all the time. I’d expect as much from a historian but it still impresses me
Fascinating story! Lived in Cambridge for the last 12 years and never heard this one. I remember a few years back when they were redeveloping the train station there were occasions when the works had to be halted and the railway closed due to finding unexploded bombs in the excavations. A slightly better excuse for cancelling trains than leaves on the tracks!
oh you'll lose that snarky attitude when you lose your footing on a wet leaf and use your nose to stop the onrushing pavement :-)
Seems like you triggered someone. I lived in and around Cambridge for the first 55 years of my life and I never heard of this either.
I have read it happens quite often in Germany when they are developing new roads and tearing down old buildings built before or during the war.
I thought the excuse of leaves on the track was only used in the Netherlands...
Did they actually shut down a railway due to leaves on the tracks?
Extraordinary ! Special mention to the "then and now" photographs, and the map of the area of the crash, that doubles the value of your presentation. This is living History, my favorite, and of the greatest quality. Thanks gentleman, see you soon for more !
Sometimes I don’t have time to watch the clip but I love the intro music so I always stick it on
Just one of many hundreds, if not thousands of amazing stories from the time... incredible. Keep up the great work Mark, these stories are fascinating
The Dornier 215 and Dornier 217 are my favourite Luftwaffe bombers, sleek and business like. Both also had nightfighter variants that were quite successful too. What an amazing story from Dr Felton!
Have you ever had a physical relationship Neil?
@@littleowlbooks8514 Yes, but not recently 😭
The germans seem to have been better at designing heavy fighters than strategic bombers, imo...
@@krakenpots5693 yes! If they had developed the 'Amerika bomber' as an equivalent to our Lancs and Halifaxes instead of pouring resources into Do 17, 215, and 217's, and the Me 110 and 210/410's the outcome may have been different. And don't even get me started on the He 177!
Do-217 was amazing.But defenseless against radar directed mosies and beaus.Wish they modified it with a 20mm turret like on ju-188
That’s wild.. This is a perfect example of why I love history.
Mark: Many thanks from a US history teacher in sunny
California. Your research and delivery are an inspiration. Keep up the excellent work.
My first Mark Felton story and I enjoyed. My appreciation of history and warfare often leans heavily to single incidents and individual or personal stories.
It doesn't all need to be blood and guts.
But seriously, these are important stories to be remembered and told. Mr. Felton is doing an incredibly valuable work. The vast majority of Americans have no idea the dangers British citizens faced and these stories just scratch the surface. My father piloted B-24s out of Shipdham and once had 3 x 100 lb bombs hung up in the bomb bay that they didn't know about until they accidentally dropped through the bay doors into some poor unsuspecting English woman's back yard! Fortunately they didn't go off but they were armed and some brave bloke from munitions disposal would have had to come in and remove them. Keep up the amazing work Mr. F!
What a great story. The way that Dornier came down can only be regarded as the fortunes of war. Sometimes, luck is all you have. Charging admission made me smile, too. I always look forward to your content. Excellent job, Dr. Felton.
What a cool story. You constantly impress with the quality of these little gems of WWII history!
👍Thank you for video. Especially liked the "then and now".
Great story. I'm 76 and have read, heard and viewed innumerable stories about the war. As a child I knew about a German bomber that had ditched its bomb on a wood behind our house as it tried to flee back across the channel. But I'd never heard about this 'ghost' bomber before.
My father describes a German aircraft landing without crew landing in his school grounds coming to rest in the cricket nets. (Newcastle area)
He described one policeman trying to keep a swarm of kids off it.
Haha oh that gives quite a mental image (1940-41 approx Newcastle kids n one copper)… How big was this swarm? Was this a copper or a piggy? I need to know more about this historic encounter.
@@10yearsgone10 the machine gunners
@@tracya4087 Que?
@@10yearsgone10 youtube it
Gotta say, just looking at the title of this video, I’m like man if I had to describe Mark Felton’s channel to someone using 6 words, it’d be “World War 2 German ghost bomber.” Like nothing is more Mark Felton and I love it.
Wonderful as always. Thank you dr Felton.😊
Brilliant, I love these kind of stories. We are in Dresden, incredibly sad as to what happened to this beautiful city. The city is now completely restored after 77 years.
My family have lived in Cambridge for several generations and as a kid in the 1960s and 70s heard lots of stories from the war. This was one of them! Nice to get some first class historical research as background to those stories. My Dad who was 13 and his pals went to see it but were turned away by the Police and Home Guard.
Are you related to gary blackwell????..... i play,d footie in the same school as him early 1970,s
@@anniechrisbendy6000 Proberbly! There are loads of us in Cambridgeshire, but I'm afraid I don't know him if we are distantly related.
Answer me please???
@@anniechrisbendy6000 Sorry Annie, but I don't think I know him. I have about a hundred or more cousins in the area so it's possible I am related though.
Yet another incredible story! I don't know how Dr Felton does this. At least the German crew didn't kill any civilians or do anything stupid with weapons and the fact that that bomber didn't hit the residential area homes is a miracle.
The whole idea was to do damage. I'm a little surprised the crew didnt drop all their bombs at once then bail out......but they thought the plane was going down. How far could it have been flown after dropping it's 9000lbs of weapons?
@@bradsanders6954 I think if they thought the plane was doomed, it would start to go down. Bailing out is undoubtedly far harder to do and much more dangerous if it even can be done, when the plane is in a dive. If it had crashed as they thought, the ordnance was on board anyway, like a kamikaze without pilot.
And I suppose you don't really want to bail out straight a huge stick of incendiary bombs. Sounds pretty risky to me.
The crew was prob'ly quite happy to spend the rest of the war in a cosy British POW camp, knowing that the war was lost by that stage. LOL
Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! Retired pilot here and I love all the aero history!
I always find myself shaking my head after watching your videos. This one reminds me of the DC3 that landed itself in a belly landing somewhere in Missouri after it ran out of fuel and it's crew bailed out.
Mark Felton’s channel is the best for unbiased content has been a must watch for me for years.
A tale nicely, not to mention very well, told Mark! Definitely up to your usual high standards! I particularly liked the bit about the original fenceposts at the end!
Really a nice story again, thanks for all the informing but also entertaining content to Mr. Felton!
I love the fact that these gardening lots in cambridge still exist, and from what you can see, they are still in use and well preserved!
Simply wonderful story telling.
Never heard this story, fascinating. Love the picture of that bomb at the end, imagine finding that in your Grandads loft! Thanks Mark, you never fail to inform and educate.
The National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH has a huge section of a shot down B17's tail that was found as part of a barn in Germany long after WW2 ended.
Great footage from the actual crash location. Truly spot on stuff!
Thanks!
Really interesting story. That satellite view really does show just how lucky people were that night, it could have come down anywhere but comes down in an allotment with enough room to slide to a halt? Someone must have been smiling on them that night.
I really enjoyed the before and after photos and I enjoyed you visiting the site. That alone has got me to subscribe to you. Would love to see more videos like this where you go to the sites with before and after shots.
Yes; and would have been terrible for business in the Thai restaurant.
Another fascinating story. Many thanks for taking the time to produce this - and other, similar items!
Dr Felton You never cease to amaze me at these very interesting and unknown stories you always find. I thought I new a great deal about WW2 . Next to your knowledge I know very little. Thank you . The best REAL History lessons around courtesy of Dr. Mark Felton
An atypical upload from you, Mark. Way to keep it fresh!
One thing we’ve seen about aircraft is ALOT of them have been ditched thinking it was going down only for the plane to land itself by gliding down.
I enjoyed this very fine video. I love the words "rubber necking"! Hahaha. Doc Felton is the best military historian on the web.
No cabbages were harmed in the making of this video although a few runner beans were treated for cuts and bruises.
But a gnome was shot by the home guard when he couldn't identify himself ..... 🤨🇬🇧
You are AWFUL! Upvoted!
@@brianallsopp69 Gunner Sugden on leave then.
New spin on WWII history buffs know all about Stalingrad and Midway battles. This is a real treat!
What an amazing story Mark! The Dornier Do-17 I know well, but the Do-217 less so. It must have had a very efficient autopilot!
Not necessarily, aircraft can float down safely of their own accord. Such as the F106 "Cornfield Bomber" or even the X2 after the exit of Mel Apt.
Just in time for my morning Cherrios!
Thanks as always Dr Felton. 👍🏾
Stories like this one are why I get excited when I get a notification that youve posted a new story. I love reading about the European theater during WW2 but you always come up with something ive never heard of. Thanks
Seriously your channel brings back that nostalgic feel of the old war documentaries that used to air on History Television like back in the days of Anne Medina with History and History on film. As a child of the 90's your style and format brings me back to happy and simple times. For all the horrors that befell upon the world during the second world war there are some truly heartwarming and cherichable moments like this when everyone can take a step back and appreciate the irony at how a weapon of war carrying many munitions of malice ended up parking itself in the safest place possible. This was truly a delightful little snippet of history thank you ❤
Amazing! Would make a great film. So many incidents are forgotten in the mists of time. The thought of a 'ghost' bomber with a full-load, lumbering towards a random landing somewhere in England, is chilling.
Very interesting history once again Mark. Thanks so much.
One of my favorite episodes that you've done. I wish we could have seen you talking to the owners of the allotments!
Whilst munching on a carrot painted to look like an incediary bomb?
What a fantastic story to start the weekend! Thank you ever so much Mr Felton.
Mark felton research is often in the highest quality which made one wonder....is he a time traveller, doing interviews to captured luftwaffe aircrews and local townfolks. Another oustanding job.
And a place traveler too - some of his recent videos have involved traveling to the location of an incident to see it now. WWII history must be a lot more interesting in the UK, the place things actually happened and remnants are still visible. Colorado, USA doesn't have much, though I've heard of a few WWII-era plane wrecks (B-17s I think) in the mountains not too far from here from training accidents. I'm not a strong enough hiker to go see them though, they're very remote.
Thanks for what you do, Mark, it's always interesting, educational, and entertaining. Very much enjoyed your book, 'Zero Night'.
love all your discoveries. you are a true historian, trying to give the rest of us a picture of what it was like during the second world war...
Thanks Mark, for such an excellent account of this story. I have a personal interest in this:
Using the information that you gave , I traced the flight path backwards and....
At the time of this incident I would have been a frightened little 6y/o huddled together with my Mother and two sisters in the front room of our house, under a Morrison Shelter - a steel table with steel mesh sides - as this plane passed directly overhead. I lived in Mill Road, midway between Madras Road and Hobart Road and your details indicate that that is the point where it crossed Mill Road.
I reckon that by that time its altitude would have been less than 200 feet and falling rapidly.
Wow! It certainly was a very close run thing!
That really is a miracle landing. As Dr. Mark points out it could’ve killed so many had it crashed directly into houses. Mrs. Riggleford’s concrete fence posts are among those many unnamed Britons still deserving of some honour from Her Majesty‘s Government for their contribution to victory.
Those fence posts need to be knighted...
Nono its perfectly British for them to remain almost unknown. These where stout upper-lipped english-posts who where in the right place at the right time, and did the same thing any other British fence post would have done 😁
@@iggyharl5780 Literally lol. As an American, I do appreciate Brit humor!
And her Anderson shelter.
I don’t know how you manage to do it but I’m glad you do . Always awakening curiosity . Thank you once again .
I remember our year 5 primary school teacher telling us the story of a "cabbage patch bomber"... funny to find it here!
Great video Mark! Thanks!
Very interesting. Particularly liked the excellent 'then and now' photographs. Thanks for upload.
Always amazing how you find such detailed stories, Dr. Mark.
Concur. I was wondering how you knew the crew's names, which was revealed later when they were captured after bailing out. Still leaves open the question of why there were no reports of a low flying plane.
Mr. Felton- I am extremely impressed with your content. I look forward to every episode. Thank you for your stellar documentaries!😎👍
Dr. Felton I believe you are one of a kind and are 1 of a minute few that deserve ever single like/subscriber. However I sense that monetary gains are not why you are doing such phenomenal research and presentation of such interesting content.;-)
Yet another great video! Very informative as always! Thank you so much for uploading it!
Marvelous story. I love Felton's work and research. In 1940 I was evacuated from Finsbury Park in London to Knebworth in Hertfordshire, not far north of London, and we went to school in the village hall. As we came home across the fields one wintry afternoon a twin-engined German bomber flew very low above our heads and we all scattered across the snow. We could see the black crosses on its wings. I ran all the way home and told Mr Primett, the air raid warden who I was billeted with. He said not to worry and that they would be halfway to France by now and certainly they would be back! I remember before D-Day the ammunition and gear stacked all along the country lanes under the cover of the hedgerows and trees around the villages, under open-ended tin Nissen huts. All long ago now.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Hope you are well.
Unbelievable.. brought a smile to my face this morning. Keep up the great work sir!!
Absolutely brilliant!! Another little gem from Dr Felton!! The then and now pics really give a tangible connection to the saga. Amazing!! 👍
Absolutely fascinating. When you said that the concrete posts were still in place a tingle went down my spine. I wonder how many in the area today appreciate their significance?
There must be hundreds of interesting stories in England that we never hear about, when regarding the German bombing of the U.K. Thanks for sharing this one.
Brillant as usual. Fascinating and eminently informative as usual. And, I'm thankful, as usual.
Most of the content I watch on youtube is military history. However, whenever I see a new video from you a big smile comes across my face.
My father is also a huge fan. We find ourselves frequently discussing your latest videos once a week.
Love your content Mark, Thank you
I have some scavenged parts from a Stirling bomber "MacRoberts reply" that went down in Denmark after being damaged by flak in Germany, by chance i found them in a thrift store, they had been converted to a inkwell with the date of the crash ingraved, after some online research i found the story behind it.
That's cool. We often hear of Trench art but not downed bomber art.🖋 What a cool piece of history.
Nice. Perhaps you could upload images somewhere one day? I imagine a MacRoberts descendant will eventually google a path to seeing them.
Absolutely love these little hidden treasures, thank you so much for bringing them to us!
Fascinating story Professor Felton, what are the odds of that plane landing like that, many thanks for sharing this story.
What a jewel of a story! You are the best Dr. Felton.
Great to be back to WW2, god knows where you get your obscure reports from!
Historical detective work at its finest 👍🏻👏🏻
Well done again, Dr. Felton.
Mark. Your talent for bringing stories big and small to life is second to none. Please keep it up
This channel is an awesome source for history 👏 😀
Great video Dr. Felton... and it's not even Halloween yet. A ghostly pilot perhaps? Jane Rigglesford is such a delicious name for a character in a novel.
That’s amazing Sir Mark.
🇺🇸🏴🇬🇧
As always - fascinating and educational. Thank you Dr. Felton.
Another great story Dr Felton, thanks so much.
Fascinating story well researched and presented as always. I am surprised that Dr Felton has not become a British TV regular!
At age 70 I have been brought up on stories of WW2 from family members and this is just like one of those!
I know what you mean! I was born in '64 and growing up it was like the war was still happening!
Shrapnel collection in the cupboard, wartime recipe books, ARP warden's tin bowler in the garage.
All family stories started with "In the war..."
The psychological impact of those years was HUGE! It affected three generations of my family.
One of my favourite dinners is a sausage stew taken from a wartime recipe book. It only has four ingredients but it's gorgeous!
Plus, if i hear the phrase "Make do and mend." one more time I'll scream! 🤣
These stories, this history will be lost in time.
Thank you for posting them.
A Video about my favourite plane! Sadly none of them exist anymore today...
A worthwhile video, again. I especially appreciate the "then and now" photos and hope you'll incorporate more of them into your subsequent videos, Mark.
For a moment I was thinking Dorsal Gunnur was a very apt name for a German bomber crewman. Great upload Mark thanks for even more interesting information
Exceptional. Thank you for sharing.
Reminds me of the USAAF B-24 Liberator bomber that made a decent crash landing on its own in the North African desert, 1943.
Its crew had parachuted before the plane ran out of fuel but they all died in the desert.
Photographs of the bomber, the "Lady be good" shows the plane broke in two at the end of its landing but had the crew remained onboard, they probably would have survived with the water and food stored on the plane and its radios still working.
However, it was also during the dead of night when they decided to bail out, having overflown their base and no clue what their position was.
Then there are two ghost planes courtesy of the RFC (later RAF) and the RAF.
During a mission, Manfred "The Red Baron" Von Richthofen and his flight were surprised by a British two man reconnaisance plane.
The German fighters broke formation and ganged up on its tail, riddling the plane with bullets.
However, the British plane did not go down and continued its level flight towards the German lines.
After Von Richthofen and his men had landed, they were informed that the plane they encountered had made a perfect crash landing behind German lines. Both the pilot and navigator were killed by the hail of bullets from the German fighters.
The other pilots thought this was a bad omen, the fact that the British plane had ignored their deadly fire and continued its mission.
The Red Baron shrugged it off and toasted to the dead British crew, saying: "That's the way to go! Flying till the last drop of fuel and the last drop of blood."
Another German flying ace, Adolf Galland, encountered his British ghost plane during the Battle of Britain in 1940.
After hearing over the radio the panicked voices of a flight of Luftwaffe pilots who were flying Stukas and were blasted out of the sky by the RAF, Galland, flying in his Bf-109, spotted a lone British Hurricane.
He dove onto the plane and shot at it till it was on fire.
The stricken Hurricane started to circle, losing altitude at a steady rate but not crashing.
Intrigued, Galland pulled his fighter next to the burning Hurricane, trying to get a look at the pilot. He was shocked to see the pilot was dead, the controls apparently still in his frozen, dead hands. Galland noted later in his memoirs "I did not have the guts to give it a mercy salvo."
There's other stories of pilotless planes landing relatively intact as well. Probably the best - though peacetime - was a Convair F-106 Delta Dart fighter jet that got into an unrecoverable spin over Montana in 1970. Pilot ejected, the change in CG and force of ejection caused the aircraft to return to stable flight. Uncontrolled but level and descending slowly, it touched down gently and skidded to a stop in a cornfield with almost no damage. It was repaired and put back into service, eventually flown again by the same pilot - surely the only time in history a pilot has ejected from an airplane and flown the same aircraft again. The aircraft is now preserved at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. I believe The History Guy has done a video on it.
Another story I once heard - this one a general aviation situation - was where a pilot of a small plane (a Mooney if I remember right) passed out due to carbon monoxide poisoning. The uncontrolled plane gear-up landed similar to this bomber, pilot relatively unhurt - I think the windshield broke allowing the cockpit to air out and fresh air revived the pilot. Plane was totaled but an incredible story of luck for the pilot to survive.
There is also the story of a US Air force air refuelling KC-97G that took off from Plattsbug New York state on Decembre 10th 1962. A fire broke out and the 10 men crew was ordered to bail out after the plane was put on a north course. One crew member was lost because his chute did not open while the aircraft flew more than 1000 miles before "landing" in a remote region of Québec province.
Some equipment was later retrieved by the Air force from the almost intact aircraft that was then partially dismantled over the years.
One remarkable "ghost plane" incident occurred in 1950 and involved a Convair B-36 bomber. Three of the bomber's six engines caught fire off the coast of British Columbia and the other engines began losing power. The cause was an over-rich fuel mixture resulting from ice build-up in the carburetors. With the plane losing altitude, the crew set the auto pilot on a circular course out over the Pacific and bailed out. As the B-36 descended into warmer air, the carburetors became free of ice and power was restored. The crewless bomber gained altitude and circled back over the coast, just clearing the mountains, and flew deep into the interior of British Columbia before finally running out of fuel and crashing in the wilderness. The plane was apparently fairly intact, as the U.S. military came in four years later and used explosives to destroy it. The crash was also notable in that it was one of the first "broken arrow" incidents - this B-36 was carrying an atomic bomb with the plutonium core removed.
Brilliant video from Dr Felton. I used to live in Cambridge and know that area well . Great seeing history in places you know . Thanks for this insightful story.
Love your content Dr Felton. Can you do a clip on Rhodisian fighters during WW2 ? They are rarely ever mentioned . Both black and white
Great video! I love your channel. Fascinating stuff!
What an amazing story. The autopilot worked flawlessly and probably landed better than any pilot could do in a ditch landing scenario. Lol. It’s also amazing that officers weren’t flying the plane. Just nco’s.
The RAF did this too but was based more on 'Class' grounds, the upper echelons of the RAF couldn't believe that a pilot who came from a 'lower' or 'middle'-class background would make a suitable officer. But it wasn't just pilots. Early in the War when Bomber Command aircrew were in low in number, and still at that time carrying out daylight ops, a number of ground-based men who repaired/maintained Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys and Handley Page Hampdens were seconded as air-gunners, but still having the same rate of pay - getting any extra and recognition of ops carried out came in later. These men were often only given very short notice that they would be required for an operation.
German's squad leader could also be nco's more common in late war. Germans had great faith in there nco's.
@@shed66215 I see comments of interest, and let my thoughts just run .....
I suspect the pre-war RAF officer's pay did not cover his expenses, so his family was expected to top it up, so obviously people with insufficient family income would struggle if commissioned. ...... Cranwell was an expensive education for which fees were paid. ...... Pre-war NCOs could learn to fly through auxiliary squadrons, I believe.
Once war started, and many pre-war officers were dead or POWs, so private income no longer fully applied, making it easier to commission more NCOs.
More recently, 2 of my cousins were officers in the Grenadier Guards, following their father, who won a Military Cross at a river crossing attack in Italy, after service in North Africa ( Longstop Hill ). ...... London is horrendously expensive socially, but that side of the family were county bankers, tin smelters, railway entrepreneurs, shipowners, and in an age when everyone knew everyone else locally, financed many things, and they now have an estate ( agricultural and industrial ) to call on. ...... One retired as a Colonel, and is Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall. ...... If you watched Biden and the rest arrive for the summit in Cornwall last year, you would have seen him, complete with sword. ...... The Queen had to cut a cake in Cornwall, was unimpressed with the cake knife provided, so called upon Edward for his sword, saying that it would be more exciting. ...... Not bad for a lady of 95 years of age! ...... A Lord-Lieutenant is unpaid, but it runs in the family, as his father was High Sherrif, and his grandfather was also Lord-Lieutenant.
The Bolithos started from quite humble beginnings, and were tanners in the early 18th century, but Cornwall was full of tin and copper, and became THE mining centre of Europe in the first 2/3rds of the 19th century, and the Bolithos were canny Cornishmen who were born at the perfect moment, and knew what to do with the opportunity. ...... Large numbers were officers in the service, and both my great-grandfather and his son gave their lives in WW1. ...... Two were Royal Flying Corps officers, one of who pioneered the development of air-to-ground artillery spotting by radio, was a spook in WW2, and when the author Douglas Reeman moored his yacht beside his in the Channel Islands, gave his name to the Richard Bolitho series of novels. ...... Another, a commando, was killed by the French at Oran on HMS Walney, as they tried to seize the port, and the family gave a public house in Gulval near Penzance to the Coldstream Guards Association in his memory.
There is a tradition that if you hold wealth locally, you must look after the local people, and serve in whatever way you can, and when your family's blood is well-soaked into that same ground over hundreds of years, it feels like home in a way few people understand today, as cities, television, international travel, and so on, dilute the link between people and land.
The US Army Aircorps had an NCO pilot program as well. In fact famous fighter pilot Chuck Yeager - later the pilot who first flew faster than the speed of sound, and still later a General in the USAF - earned his wings as a non-com.
If you even wanna call it that, i believe these airplanes had some very primitive forms of autopilots,nothing like something installed on a modern 777 today,lol, now that will land a plane all on its own , this was probably sheer luck.
When Richtofen (Red Baron) was killed that plane pretty much landed itself and although it hit hard and broke the undercarriage it was pretty much all there,from the forensics they did on him they strongly believe he was toast way before he landed so it does happen,this Dornier was probably configured and trimmed for level flight and it finally ran out of fuel and just landed.
This was probably one of those instances like when someone trows a wad of paper and it hits 3 things before going in the waste bin,that wont happen again anytime soon,lol
Absolutely fascinating story, thanks for posting Mark.