We’ve received this amazing story about the heroic act of a local Barnby resident in 1940. We would like to thank John Berge for sharing this story with us about his grandfather (Ted Streets). John still has the inscribed gold pocket watch given to Ted Streets by the rescued pilot’s parents and presented by the Air Council. Please see the picture gallery below that helps bring alive this piece of history.
The Newspaper article (which was published below in 1990) reads:
A hero of the peace was honored by the royal Air Force on Saturday at an informal ceremony at an RAF station in Lincolnshire. Mr Edward Streets of Barnby Manor Farm, Newark, was presented by a commanding officer, on behalf of the Air Council, with a half- hunter inscribed gold watch — “in recognition of services rendered.”
Behind the prosaic phrase lay the story of a ‘ gallant action performed last May, when a bomber crashed in a cornfield near Newark Golf Links, and the crew of five perished.
Mr Streets, who is a farm bailiff to Captain Platt, was the first to reach the blazing machine. He hurried to the front of the plane and there glimpsed the face of a man huddled in the wreckage. Although the flames were blowing towards him, he went forward, reached out, and by grasping his hand was able to drag the injured aviator clear, put out the flames on his body and strip off his clothes. However the rescued man died two hours later.
