Bomber Bert Returns to the Scene of His Air Crash ; Having Endured Two Years As a Pow in a Nazi Camp, Bert Cole Had Given Little Thought to Returning to Germany Until He Was Asked to Help Out with a School Project, As He Told Emma Brady

Birmingham Post › October 27, 2004

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Summary

Revisiting the site where his Lancaster bomber crashed in Germany and he was captured by enemy troops proved an illuminating stroll down Memory Lane for Bert Cole.

The 82-year-old, a former RAF Sergeant from Wood End, in Atherstone, Warwickshire, was finally retracing his steps more than 60 years after his aircraft had come down over Kaiserslautern in August 1943. After enduring intense interrogation, solitary confinement and torture as a prisoner of war, there was little to lure Mr Cole back to the scene of his wartime adventures.

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Bomber Bert Returns to the Scene of His Air Crash ; Having Endured Two Years As a Pow in a Nazi Camp, Bert Cole Had Given Little Thought to Returning to Germany Until He Was Asked to Help Out with a School Project, As He Told Emma Brady

But he returned to the crash site for the first time last month after a teacher traced the surviving members of his squadron as part of a histo...

See the full content of this document