A Reminder

Strollers on Sheringham's west end clifftop footpath, which leads up to the Coastguard Hut, may have pondered the origins of a moving little cluster of crosses of remembrance placed just behind the fence - on the seaward side - above, yet close to, the Lifeboat Shed. To the best of my knowledge this is an individual family's private tribute to a lost, loved member. It is an area of the cliffs which, during the last War, was honeycombed with tunnels and heavily defended. What younger visitors or post-War residents may not know, is that the moving little assemblage also overlooks the place where three airmen - enemy airmen, as it happens - did lose their lives.
This War-time drama occurred during the early hours of December 6, 1939, during a night of hail and rain and brisk winds. Residents close to the seafront were awakened by the sound of an aircraft, very low and with engines spluttering, which went on to crash in the sea on the east side of the Lifeboat Shed. Despite an initial fear that 'Jerries might be running around in the dark,' which caused some alarm and excitment, people poured out of their houses in the pitch dark, the lifeboat crew was 'knocked up,' and the lifeboat launched into heavy swell to search for survivors.
Ashore, flickering lights and torches picked out the sight of a parachute draped over the prom near the Whelk Coppers, and an equally ominous glimpse of a swastika-adorned plane rolling in the sea about 50 yards from high-water mark. Despite the wind and the stink of aviation fuel some of the male bystanders waded into the sea with ropes and managed to secure the wreckage to the breakwater, to prevent it drifting away.
Daylight added detail, even as the area was flooded with military guards, officials and aviation experts. The aircraft was a twin-engined Heinkel HE 115 float plane which may have been laying magnetic mines. The story was put around that it had been 'downed' by a 'secret weapon' at Beckham, though subsequent consideration suggested the plane was much more likely to have clipped one of the Chain Home radar towers at West Beckham. The Heinkel also boasted self-sealing fuel tanks, a system which greatly interested British boffins who were working on their own version. Eventually, of course, the wreckage was cleared away, though one of the engines is said to be still there, off the beach, lying in about 20 feet of water.
But what of the German crew of three? The body of one was discovered immediately and subsequently buried, with military honours, at Bircham. The other two bodies were washed ashore several days later. They too were given military funerals, this time at Sheringham's Weybourne Road cemetery. After the War, I believe, they were exhumed and re-buried in the German cemetery at Cannock Chase, Staffs.
It is an odd fact that if the Heinkel had come down at low water, it might well have been recorded as the first German plane of the War to crash on British soil.