In the early hours of January 4th 1944 a Wellington bomber of the RAF crashed in Brockhurst wood near the village of Farnham Common. Of the crew of six only one survived. After the war the people of the village clubbed together for a memorial and installed a stained glass window in the Anglican Church of St. John’s nearby.

Forty years later Mrs. Florence Payne, mother of the dead rear-gunner, Sergeant Victor Payne, returned on a pilgrimage,  revisiting the site and the church.

The local newspaper covered the visit in a moving story and raised  questions in the mind of local resident, ex RAF Bomber Command  pilot, Jeff Gray.

The newspaper indicated that the bomber was crippled and the young airmen died trying to avoid the village.

What dreadful combination of circumstance had conspired against them?

Captain Gray investigates...

The Stain on the Glass by Charles Jeffrey Gray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license will be considered. Please contact Jeff Gray here

The Stain On The Glass may be downloaded here (if you have a broadband connection) or viewed online in Google Books here or printed and bound copies purchased direct for $NZ25 plus p&p. Contact Robert Gray