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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Callington U3A csv story collectors Peter and Judy Foweraker, on behalf of Harry Lonzell Rush, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

My name is Harry Lonzel Rush, born in Rock in 1927, which makes me 77 years’ old. We moved to Delabole soon afterwards.

I started work at the age of 15 years at the Cornwall Electric Power Company, stationed in Delabole, and, as an apprentice working round the area, we used to go to the local sub station that supplied the power to all the villages, where we read the meters and inspected the transformers and overhead cables.

One particular day in 1944, we went there on a usual visit and had taken all the readings and inspected everything, and then, just as we were locking up the gates to the compound, we heard this very loud noise, which sounded like an aircraft approaching. We couldn’t see anything, but the next thing we knew there was a terrible crash in the field below us, and eventually the aircraft, a two-engine Dakota, landed between two poles supplying the power and sliced off its wings. Then, the fuselage landed straight on top of our switchgear and transformers! We unlocked the gates again and went in, thinking that perhaps the pilot and crew were hurt, but fortunately they opened the cabin door and climbed out! One of them said, “Can you tell me were the nearest telephone is?” Of course, we had a telephone in the actual concrete building, so we let them in, where they rang their depot and later got taken back to their unit.

Of course, soon after that the compound was surrounded by security and eventually the aircraft was removed, but had it come down a few minutes earlier, of course, we would have actually been inside the sub station, and might have got . . . . . . . !!

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