July 30 Wed 10.30 pm [1941]
# LOVEABLE SYBIL ADAMS STAYS AND SEE-DOODLES
# BRITISH BOMBER CRASH OFF SKEGNESS – LIFE LOST

Sybil Adams been and gone again. Just the same as ever. She see-doodles about all day and yet we like her. It must be charm! She is very loveable. Poor Frank was on a “stunt” part of the time. He was so woe-begone. He had a boil too which made him very seedy. They went to church on Sunday evening. The fact that church starts at 6 o’ c and chapel at 6.30 seems so topsy-turvy to me, who was always used to it being the other way on, that I seemed to realise there really is a war and it is making a difference. I can’t explain exactly what I feel but it seems uncomfortably strange. Perhaps the war has nothing to do with church starting at 6 o’ c but it never did before the war. Sybil and Frank enjoyed the service and then sang to us until supper-time. He sang “Oh for the wings of a dove.” He has a fine voice.

We went to Sk. this afternoon. Father wanted his basic ration coupons (for petrol) also petrol and I wanted one or two things, got them all except cup hooks. Lots of people in Sk. Many complaints that they are eating up all the food supplies needed by residents. Can easily believe it as all the thousands of R.A.F. recruits and sailors from Royal Arthur must make a tremendous difference.

Mr A was just going back to his office after dinner when we arrived. He appeared rather upset. A British bomber had crashed into the sea this morning off Skegness and only part of the crew were saved. It was too late by then to expect any more to be alive even if they could be got at. The plane was completely submerged.

‘Stunt’ refers to army manoeuvres/exercise.

The British bomber, which crashed into the sea off Skegness pier, was reportedly a Hampden from RAF Coningsby. The pilot and one crew member escaped but the body of a third crew member was never recovered. (Buried wreckage, an engine plaque, was much later reported to have been recovered from the beach by Mr R Bainbridge – Lincolnshire Standard, 7th July 2004.)

Have you read an introduction to May Hill & family (includes photographs) and explored ‘The Casualties Were Small’?

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