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THE little-known Battle of Graveney Marsh, the last military conflict to take place on British soil, is finally being remembered 70 years after the event.
Most history books have Bonny Prince Charlie’s 1746 defeat at Culloden as the most recent conflict to occur on home soil.
But the virtually unheard of skirmish in the Kent countryside near Whitstable 194 years later was actually the last such action.
The battle took place on September 27, 1940 between the crew of a downed German bomber and a company of British soldiers who had rushed from a local pub. Members of the London Irish Rifles were billeted in the Sports- man Inn at the coastal hamlet of Seasalter when the stricken Junkers 88 plane came down on Graveney Marsh.
Though the British soldiers armed themselves, they expected the four-strong Luftwaffe crew to give up without a fight.
But as they approached plane, the Germans opened fire with a machine gun. The British service- men returned fire while a smaller group crawled along a dyke to within 50 yards of the plane before they began shooting.
There was a heavy exchange of fire-power until the Germans sur- rendered, with one being shot in the foot – but nobody was killed. In a dramatic twist, commanding officer Captain John Cantopher heard one of the captured
crew say in German the plane would “go up” at any moment.
He dashed back to the aircraft, found an explosive charge under one wing and threw it into a dyke,
saving the two-week-old aircraft for British engineers to inspect.
Incredibly, the British shared pints of beer with the German airmen at the pub before the PoWs were picked up.
Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/...#ixzz1ANM179tU
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