BARNSLEY men who owe their lives to the bravery of a Second World War bomber’s crew when it crashed in Pogmoor were among about 100 who turned out to pay their respects at an act of remembrance on Wednesday.
A Whitley bomber crashed into what is now playing fields between Cresswell Street and West Road at Pogmoor just a few yards from a row of terraced houses on January 6 1942.
Sgt Alexander Hollingworth, of the Australian Air Force, deliberately crashed his plane into a quarry instead of parachuting to safety to avoid hitting the houses just yards away. He was killed instantly.
All the windows were blown out of the houses on Cresswell Street, and inside one of them was a young Thomas Claude Smith, now 78, who was then a four-year-old who was playing with his grandmother in a downstairs room while his mother was upstairs.
Three of Sgt Hollingsworth's crew had parachuted to safety, landing in the Broadway, Dodworth Road and West Road areas.
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