The Battle of Britain - 14 September 1940: Hitler stressed again today to his senior commanders that complete air superiority was required on the British side of the Channel. He set 17 September as a new date for invasion, though his Navy feared that the plan would be affected by further losses of the barges to be used in the invasion, which were being subjected to heroic attacks by Bomber Command, Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm in what has gone down in history as the "Battle of the Barges". Three raids during the afternoon crossed the Kent coast and headed for London. Soon after 4 pm a Hurricane of No 73 Squadron crashed on Parkhouse Farm, Chart Sutton, near Maidstone, with Sergeant John Brimble being reported missing. Forty years later his remains were found during an excavation of the site and he was buried with full military honours in Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey. At around 6 pm No 253 Squadron suffered the loss of two Hurricanes. Sergeant James Anderson baled out with severe burns but Sergeant Burley Higgins, who had been a school teacher before the war, was still in his aircraft when it fell in flames in an orchard at Swanton Farm, Bredgar, near Sittingbourne. The grave of Burley Higgins is in the churchyard of St Lawrence at Whitwell, Derbyshire, close to his family home and the Church of England school at which he taught. On his CWGC headstone is a variation of the words from the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon: "At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember him".
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 06:19:21 +0000
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