This story was supplied by Lloyd Sunderland, a Ridgewell veteran.

I was a pilot in the 532nd Bomb Squadron from June to December, 1944.  Perhaps these comments about buzz bombs and V-2s would be appropriate for your web site.

Several V-1s and V-2s landed near Ridgewell Air Base in the summer and >fall of 1944. I watched a V-1 fly directly over the base one evening, and a Hurricane dived down on it with guns blazing just after it passed over the field. The buzz bomb was still in plain sight when the Hurricane scored a hit and the bomb exploded. I estimate that the bomb was flying at less than 1000 feet as it passed over our base.

I was duty officer one night when the Germans were using a new technique for launching the V-1s. They carried them piggy back on JU-88s and launched them over the North Sea. In the Base Command Post we had a grid map of England to plot the location and tracks of enemy aircraft.

That was an exciting night for me as I manned the phone to receive the reports on each of the bombs as they were launched and then we plotted their tracks over England. Unlike the bombs launched from sites in the Calais area that were limited to southeastern England, some of these penetrated far into the midlands but without much effect.

On one occasion, a V-2 hit near the end of a Ridgewell runway and very close to the 532nd Squadron enlisted quarters. My crewmen reported that it shook their hut so much that a radio and other items fell off of a shelf. I felt the blast too, but I wasn't nearly so close as my crewmen.

On another evening we heard the familiar buzz bomb put put put and then a big explosion nearby. I learned the next day just how close it came to one of my crew. He had invited a lady friend from London to spend a few days in the country away from the steady V-1 bombardment they were undergoing at that time. There was a vacant cottage near the Ridgewell Base, and my enterprising crewman exercised squatters rights in order to provide a comfortable cottage for his friend. In fact he set her up for light housekeeping with items acquired by moonlight requisition. On the particular evening we heard the V-2, my guy and his gal decided to walk to the nearby pub to socialize. They had scarcely cleared the premises when the bomb hit their cottage. It totally destroyed the building.

All that was left at the scene was a pile of shattered boards, a badly bent GI bunk bed and the pieces of the buzz bomb that looked like crumpled stove pipe. Fortunately the couple escaped uninjured.

Although they both married and raised families on opposite sides of the Atlantic, the guy told me recently that he has traveled to the UK several times and each time has had a happy meeting with his former sweetheart and her family.