Civilian Bravery

When I was young, there was a kind of Family Legend about how, when I was an infant, burning petrol from a crashed aircraft had slashed across my pram wich was in the front garden - only moments after I had been taken out of it and laid in my bedroom cot.

The tale was given some weight by the framed presence of a certificate, signed by Winston S. Churchill that commended my Mother - 'Margaret, Mrs. McEnroe, Housewife' for brave conduct.

My Mother of course told me of the crash and it's aftermath, of how she had rescued a small girl from the burning wreckage, and how one Owen Morgan Owen had saved another child just as the fuel tank of the aricraft exploded.

It was not until the then Public Records Office at Kew released the minutes of The Interdepartmental Committee on Civil Defence, Gallantry Awards, that I learned the exact details.

The aircraft was a Blenheim, No.6793, which had taken off from RAF Bicester at 11.50 hrs., 13th September, 1941. It was piloted by Sergeant Pilot No. 64890 Donald Alex Neal. He did not survive.

Owen Morgan Owen was awarded an MBE, my Mother a mention in dispatches. I have copies of the Committee's minutes, PRO HO 250/42-49, in which the accounts of the event are given as Cases 1817A and 1817B, and of course have the framed certificate, of which there is a copy attached.

Bryan McEnroe, 29th.April, 2005.

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