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This
incident was published by a reporter working the the Melbourne Argus
in 1944
WHEN A "ROBOMB"HIT BURES
Oak Beams of True Thomas Wood's Home Stood the Test
By CRAYTON BURNS
One of those new fandangled "robombs,"
Hitler's secret weapon, as he calls it, hit the village of Bures, Suffolk,
England, on June 16 about the hour of cock-crow, and caused a scatteration.
This makes 144 bombs, not counting incendiaries, that have hit the village
this war, interfering with about 1,000 decent villagers going about Christian-like
on their lawful occasions.
Hitler will answer for this. There are
160 lads and lasses of the village gone off to the wars, not counting
70 in the Home Guard,and the ARP, fire, special police,and ambulance services,
and the village has paid its silver into the war and victory loans, too;
more than£20,000 sterling.
Bures, Suffolk, be no ordinary village,
we would have you know,though it do stand full 60 mile north-north-west
of London town. It has stood more than 1,000 years on this very site.
Edmund I, King of the English, was crowned here him they called Edmund
the Martyr, because he died of a knife stab in the belly, inflicted on
May 26, 946; at the royal villa of Pucklechurch,by the hand of one Liofar
an exiled robber, and as scurvy a knave a sever approached a royal personage.
Here stands Parsonage Hall, home of True Thomas Wood, the music maker
and scribe, who has gone off to Australia, or some such outlandish place,
as King's Minstrel, leaving his lawful wedded wife, Mistress St Osyth
Mahala Eustace Wood,OBE, president of the British Legion at Bures.
Parsonage Hall is one of the oldest homes in England, built of oak beams,
studs, and Tudor bricks in 1480, added to about 1530, another wing added
about 100 years later, Queen Anne windows put in about 1700, and the present
barn andstables 1750. It contains a good collection of books, early prints,
and woodcuts, needlework, old lace, and udor furniture.
And here is the true account of what the "robomb" did to Parsonage
Hall, as told by Mrs Osyth Wood in an airgraph to Dr Thos Wood, care of
His Majesty's High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in Australia:
"This week has not been without incident. Thursday I went to London
shopping. A most peaceful journey both ways, although part of a bomber
had come down on the line earlier in the week, and on Wednesday they were
transferring passengers to a shuttle bus service at Stratford.
I woke up suddenly at 5.30 am with what seemed like a plane with a missing
engine just above the chimneys. My reaction was: "That chap's in
trouble.
Curious. It doesn't sound like one of ours; and it doesn't sound like
a German!
Then I heard the engine shut off, then a bomb; very dimly I remember hearing
falling glass and thinking I must get up and see if anybody wants help
and that a coat over pyjamas was quicker than shirt and trousers.
But instead I went peace-fully asleep,
shedding all my responsibilities."
(Mrs Wood is an ARP warden. Sub-sequent medical evidence disclosed that
she did not doze off again, but was stunned by the concussion from the
bomb, which had fallen 200yards from the house.)
"The next thing I remember," she continues, "was a very
deferential voice in my dressing room and a tremendous banging noise.
I woke up brightly, assuring Tom (ie, Tom Springett, the gardener) that
I was quite all right. Tom said the attic
window had been burst by the blast.
Then I remembered the plane crashing and felt very bad that I had not
got up, but decided that a little coffee and a survey of the damage were
indicated. So I proceeded to put on a dressing gown, make the coffee every
carefully, put the
coffee pot in the larder, and the kettle in the oven,and take a preliminary
look round.
The damage was extraordinarily light. Nobody was hurt, but the village
was seething with rumours, and housewives bewailing broken panes of glass
and general dirt. It was a new engine of war, very hush-hush, and the
bobbies went round
To try its effective range. I named it' the flying pig' after inspecting
its remains."
After a careful survey of the damage - a broken window here, some window
frames loosened and buckled, cracks in the attic plaster,man roof blown
out of the hen roof, all the dirt from the chicken roof blown through,
ceiling, and dirt everywhere, Mrs Woods adds: "I always knew it was
one of the strongest houses in England, but it had a tremendous crump.
It must have jumped inches ..."
But the oak beams and studs stood the shock.
They were, in truth, master builders in 1480.
Bures Editor:- I am surprised at the figures
the author quotes:-
" This makes 144 bombs, not counting
incendiaries, that have hit the village this war, interfering with about
1,000 decent villagers going about Christian-like on their lawful occasions"
Editor:- IN REALITY LESS THAN FIVE
" Hitler will answer for this. There
are 160 lads and lasses of the village gone off to the wars, not counting
70 in the Home Guard"
Editor :- NEARER 50 CALL UP FOR SERVICE
AND POSSIBLY 30 IN THE HOME GUARD
29/05/2015
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