REFERENCE the Bristol Blenheim article last week, may I make a correction to the information.
The aircraft came from No. 5 Operational Training Unit at Aston Down, near Stroud, not Swansea as stated.
No. 5 OTU regularly used the Severn and our area for flying training and was one of the main training airfields to produce pilots in readiness for the Battle of Britain.
The pilot who Harold MacOwen spoke to was Pilot Officer Charles Frederick Cardnell from North London.
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The aircraft remains are a reminder of the high price paid in young lives during those dark days of war.
A few days after the accident in the Severn, Charles Cardnell was posted to No. 23 Squadron at Collyweston in Cambridgeshire.
Still flying Blenheims, he was killed in action on August 8, 1940 along with his gunner Sgt Cyril Stephens from Pencoed, Glamorganshire.
Charles Cardnell is buried in the family plot at Highgate Cemetery. He was 22 years of age.
Attempts were made by various researchers after the war to locate any surviving members of his family but without success, his last relative being his mother, who died in 1963. – Allan White, Highbury Cottage, Tidenham Chase.