Walter John Fergus (T) Buchanan

The following article in a French newspaper some fifty years later sheds some light on the fate of F/O Walter Buchanan and his crew:

A VILLAGE IN FRANCE

‘Over fifty years ago, on 26th July 1944, a 49 Squadron Lancaster bomber was returning from a raid on Stuttgart and, according to eye-wimesses, appeared to try to make an emergency landing. The aircraft crashed into a wood near the village of Coignieres in northern France, killing all seven of the crew.

The mayor at the time gathered together a seach party and went to the crash site with the aim of retrieving the bodies, and thus preventing the Germans from having access to them. Despite warnings from the Germans that the bodies should be buried where they fell, they were brought back to the village.

The mayor, M Godot, requisitioned seven coffins and a burial service took place, conducted by the village priest. A large crowd attended, including many from other villages.

Word had got around, despite the fact that the Germans were in occupation. A memorial was erected and the Tricolour flown, again in defiance of German regulations.

Immediately after the funeral the Germans called at the mayor’s house to demand the location of the crash site. Inside the house were the dignitaries from local villages who had taken part in the funeral ceremony. Whilst the mayor was trying to convince the Germans that nothing unusual was going on, and indicating very approximately the area of the crash on a map, his daughter secretly left the house to remove as many of the wreaths and flags as possible from the graves and the memorial. Fortunately the Germans did not leave by the town square, otherwise they could have seen the remains of the decorations.

The villagers took creat risks in retrieving the bodies and burying them with honour, and had they been found out would have suffered the consequences.

Since that time the old Comrades Association and the town Council have ensured that the crew has been remembered as part of the May 8th and November 11th acts of remembrance.

Jacqueline Godot was the young daughter of the mayor who rushed out to remove the wreaths and flags when the Germans arrived after the funeral, and she remembers very well the aircraft flying low over the village just before it crashed. She still lives in the village today, with her husband Raymond and son Alan, and is very active as a local councillor. With her husband she played a major part of organising ceremonies in the past, and 50 years after the crash of the Lancaster, with the present mayor - Henri Pailleux, the Town Council and the Old Comrades Association organised a very special ceremony on 19th June 1994.

The ceremony was also attended by S/Ldr Weight, representing the Air Attache from the British Embassy in Paris, many people from the village, and families of the pilot and crew, These included the son, daughter and nephew of the pilot, who all live with their families in Campden. the pilot’s sister, Miss B. Buchanan from Sutton in Surrey and Mrs Owen and Mrs Young, sisters of Sgr Crane from Somerset.

The whole day’s programme started in the same church with the actual service that was used in 1945, a year after the event. This was followed by the placing of wreaths on the British Graves and on the grave of the mayor in 1944, M Godot. .k memorial was unvoiled near the crash site, and had been especially designed and made for the occasion. It is a model of a Lancaster in white stone, with a marble inscription. Afier speeches by the Mayor and S/Ldr Weight, there was a fly-past by a ‘Flying Fortress’. It flew low over the crowd three times. A reception next to the village hail was followed by a superb feast at a nearby’éhateau. An emotional and eventful day ended at about 8pm, with no effort having been spared by the local people to make a most memorable day.’

Members of 49 Squadron Association are forever indebted to the Godot family and indeed all the villagers of Coignieres for the care and devotion shown towards their fallen comrades.