Main menu
E. Shepard |
||
Full Names |
Rank /Unit |
Years at Q.E.G.S. |
Edward Eric Sheppard |
Sapper |
1936 |
Date / Place of Birth |
Date / Place of Death |
Age at Death |
1924 |
Sunday 17th September 1944 |
21 |
Eric was the son of Stanley & Lydia Sheppard who lived at 'Beacon's Cliff', Corfe Mullen.
In the winter of 1936, Eric was in the Christmas Concert. Form IIIA opened the proceedings with a, "A Whitewashing Incident" from Mark Twain's ' Tom Sawyer ', in which he played a relatively small part.
Early in 1939 he became a boy entrant as a Royal Engineers apprentice tradesmen at Fort Dowland, Chatham. He soon moved to the Army Technical College at Beachley (Chepstow), and volunteered for the Airborne arm of the Royal Engineers on completion of his training. It is not known when he joined 9th Field Company but he was believed to have been stationed at a Royal Engineers barracks in Lancashire when he met Dorothy Geldard from Clitheroe. Their marriage early in 1944 was sadly cut short by Edward’s death at Double Hills. There were no children of the marriage and his widow, who later remarried, died in 1985.
Earlier in the war, Eric had been through campaigns in North Africa and Italy. On the day he died, he was en route to Arnhem in a Horsa glider, which had been towed off from Keevil airfield (East of Trowbridge), by a Stirling, tug aircraft. Approximately ten minutes after take-
Eric was buried in plot Y298 in Milton Road Cemetery , Weston-
The following is from Pp 82 -
. . . One incident ended in complete tragedy. The account by Sergeant Wally Simpson, tail gunner in a 299 Squadron Stirling which had taken off from Keevil towing a Horsa glider, describes what happened. The combination was flying westwards from Keevil prior to turning and joining the main stream; the pilot of the Stirling was Flying Officer Geoff Liggins, an Australian.
-
I was watching the Horsa trailing behind when, suddenly, the glider just seemed to part in the middle. Horrified, I shouted to the skipper, "My God, the glider 's coming apart. " As the tail section of the glider fell earthwards, its front section was still in tow with the Stirling and falling like a rock to earth. As it fell, the tow rope gave way and fell with the glider still attached to it. Had the rope not broken when it did, I shudder to think what might have been. It all happened so quickly. Even if we had been able to release the glider, I still doubt to this day if the release mechanism would have functioned correctly due to the weight and angle of the glider. During this time Geoff was fighting to keep the aircraft flying; he did an excellent job under extreme circumstances.
We left the formation and gradually lost height and turned back to locate the wreckage. Noting the spot, we returned to Keevil and then drove by jeep to the crash location. I described it at the time as being " like a matchbox that had been stepped on. " The bodies of the men had remained inside. I had no way of estimating how many dead there were. There were no survivors.
-
We now know that the glider had contained two glider pilots,. 5 N. C. Os and sixteen sappers of No. 1 Platoon, 9th Airborne Field Company, Royal Engineers. The other half of the platoon was flying in a glider just below and watched the wreckage floating downwards, with understandable horror. Occupants of gliders were not issued with parachutes. The tail was empty and fell in a roadway; the main fuselage fell in a field. The cause of the accident was never established, various explosive devices were being carried, and it is possible that one of these went off prematurely.
NOTE -
