This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
Chaos descended on Wigston Magna in Leicestershire yesterday afternoon, reports the Times, when an Avro Lancaster flying above the town exploded in mid-air, killing all six members of the crew, who were Polish. Eyewitnesses report that the aircraft was flying very low through a thunderstorm when a flash of lightning hit the plane and instantly destroyed it. Debris fell across Wigston Magna. In one house a family of seven were having lunch when the explosion caused part of their kitchen to collapse. A bus was also damaged, and wreckage from the aircraft littered the town's secondary school playground. A number of small fires broke out but were quickly extinguished.
In other news, the Times reveals that 458 British GI Brides and 175 babies arrived in New York harbour on the liner Argentina on Monday morning at dawn. The arrivals to the New World braved sub-zero temperatures as their ship was towed between ice floes to dock. Over fifty of their husbands were there to greet them. Eleven other ships carrying war brides are scheduled to arrive in New York this month alone.
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