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    History Group Research

    Included here are some documents of historical interest recently uncovered.

    These documents are in PDF format, the originals are held by the History Group.

    One of our Founder members - Mrs Eva Bond - has put forward a good idea for an addition to our page on the website. Eva wants to introduce Profiles of some of the "Village Characters".  The ones she has suggested were village characters when Eva came to live here in the early 60's. She has contacted family members, all of whom have agreed to participate, and she is now in the process of compiling the Profiles. These will be posted on this website under "Profiles" in due course.

    Here is a list of the people Eva has contacted so far:

    • Henry Jarvis
    • Charlie Lethbridge
    • Albert Patey
    • Jack Rundle
    • Dudley Stidston
    • Harold Yeoman

    If anyone has ideas for any others, please contact Eva or a member of the History Group committee (see our Home Page).  Please can we have some ladies as well! 


    A project was recently carried out regarding a plane crash in Malborough during WW2, see following article:

    CERTIFICATE TO COMMEMORATE CZECH AIRMEN

    At the Remembrance Day service in All Saints Church on 9th November, a memorial certificate was unveiled to commemorate the brave Czech airmen whose RAF bomber crashed in Malborough during the Second World War. 

    The idea came about following an email received, via the Malborough Village website, by the Parish Clerk and passed to the Malborough History Group.  The email, from Peter Kosek in Canada, asked for details of the crash and whether there was a memorial he and his family could visit to pay their respects to his great uncle, Warrant Officer Ludvik Kosek, who was captain of the plane. 

    Parish Council chairman, John Yeoman, and his fellow councillors decided that these brave men, whose Czechoslovakian-manned RAF bomber squadron was based on the Lizard peninsular, deserved a place alongside the memorials to the local heroes who died fighting for their country.

    In July 1944, the plane was one of three that, at the end of a patrol, had been diverted to RAF Exeter having been unable to land at their base due to bad weather.  Two of the planes made it but, unfortunately, W/O Kosek’s Liberator BZ717 was unable to do so and crashed in thick fog into a field at Yarde Farm, ploughing through the hedge and finishing up in the field behind what is now the Co-op, exploding and killing all nine members of the crew. 

    The houses along that stretch of Salcombe Road were damaged and Stan Yeoman, a relative of John Yeoman, sadly lost his sight when a window imploded.  He was the only civilian injured in the crash.

    Brian Taylor was at primary school when the crash occurred.  “I was about nine at the time and it was lunchtime,” he recalls.  “It was a filthy day – terribly foggy.  I remember a tremendous explosion, like machine guns going off.  Later, we were able to go and have a look.   The plane had roughly kept its shape, although a few bits of the aluminium had melted.  One of the engines ended up on the other side of the road and a wheel flew off, but it’s extraordinary that the village got away with what it did.  If it had come down differently, there’s no knowing what might have happened.

    “I was speaking to Gordon Ayre, who was down at Yarde Farm at the time, only a few weeks ago and he said that when they’re working in the fields, even now they still find old bullet cases and bits of metal.”

    Brian and other members of Malborough History Group took on the task of researching the crash and Brian drew a sketch map of the site and also visited Weston Mill Cemetery in Plymouth, where he found and photographed the graves of Ludvik Kosek and seven other crew members.  All this information was sent to the Kosek family, who hope to visit the area.

    Brian has put together a small exhibit about the crash and it is currently displayed alongside the certificate.  There has already been a lot of local interest, including a school visit, and it has been agreed to leave the display up until Christmas so that more people have the opportunity to view it.

    The commemorative certificate ends with the words: 
    “Far from home, they gave their lives for
    freedom in the second world war.”