Tag: Lancaster

On a Parking Lot

The British call them car parks, but Americans refer to them as parking lots. The one in question was located in Leicester, England, so perhaps car park is the more appropriate moniker. At an rate, is particular car park held secrets that were only discovered in 2012. Up until that time and since the 1940s, thousands of British cars had parked, leaked oil, and left rubber over the surface of perhaps the most famous car park in the nation.

The thing about history is that we are sitting on the shoulders of the past almost literally. Many cities and towns are built on top of centuries of debris from previous use and events. Such was the case of this particular car park. The County Offices of Leicestershire had purchased the land in the early 1900s and built several buildings on the site and eventually included what became the car park. Of course, Leicester is one of England’s most historic towns, so the odds of something from the city’s past lying beneath the layers of asphalt (tarmac, maybe?) that covered the surface were high.

Archaeology is a funny science. There are places in the world where the archaeologist can slice through the soil like a cake and reveal layers of living having been there for centuries or even millennia. Each layer tells the story of the people and events that happened during that moment in time. And that’s what waited for archaeologists under the Leicestershire County car park. You see, when diggers began to lay bare the layers underneath the surface there, they discovered that the previous use of the site had been a school of some sort. Before that, they found that the place was part of a large garden owned by a wealthy family. The construction during each period was obvious, so tools, bricks, tile, and other detritus from those periods were found. Below those levels, the excavations found walls and foundations of a monastery and church from Tudor times 600 years ago. And it was this level that interested the historians. By the way, it was later discovered that Roman ruins lay even deeper than those of the Tudor period.

The archaeologists began finding graves up against one of the priory walls. Now, of course, the archaeologists suspected that the Tudor church and the graveyard, which the archaeologists knew was called Greyfriars, were there, but you would have never known that if you parked your car in that lot and went to work every day, never known that your vehicle rested over several bodies who were interred hundreds of years ago. But the historians had found a medieval map of Leicester in some archive, and they were able to pin-point approximately where the church and graveyard were. Luckily for them, the council had recently torn down some buildings that allowed them better access to the parking lot. But as the dig continued, it was easy for all to see that the different ages in history had used the site over that time. For example, the very first body found in the graveyard by the diggers had his feet missing–probably because some Victorian construction of the garden in the past 150 years had unknowingly chopped off the feet during that period’s work.

It’s interesting that a place like a church and a graveyard where so much emotion and perhaps even passion poured out at one time had become completely lost to time and the present. And the irony that a car park, that most common and boring symbol of the modern age, would be erected over the site wasn’t lost on many in the archaeology team. But, history is change in many ways. When King Henry VIII destroyed and dismantled almost all the Catholic monasteries and churches during his reformation, places like the Greyfriars were built over or forgotten. And there are thousands of sites such as this across the United Kingdom as the present continues to build literally as well as metaphorically upon the past.

But why this particular car park? What was it about Greyfriars Church and cemetery that mad it so interesting to the scholars? Well, it has to do with that first grave they accidently uncovered on the Tudor level, the one that the Victorian builders hundreds of years later accidently took off the feet. It was obvious that this body was unusual for other reasons as well. First of all, the hands of the body had been tied and were down by the side. The head sat at an odd angle, and there were severe head trauma signs on the skull as well as wounds in other areas of the skeleton. And the spine, the spine of the body showed signs of severe scoliosis and twisting. Later DNA testing proved that this body was the one they sought.

And even though they suspected as much, it was really blind luck that the first body unearthed at the Leicestershire County Council parking lot was the one the archaeologists were looking for–the body of King Richard III of England, killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, ending the War of the Roses.

On an Airplane Jump

Nicholas Alkemade was a British man who fought in World War 2. His job during the war was not an enviable one–he was the tail gunner in a British bomber. That position was one that had a short life-span. Many of the men who were tail gunners never lived to tell the tales of what they experienced as the bombers flew miles above Germany during the war. You see, the tail gunner had a great responsibility. The German attack planes that were sent up to stop the bombers would usually attack the Allied bombers from below and from behind. Men like Nicholas had the difficult task of trying to fend off the attackers so that the bombers could carry out their tasks. But that also meant that they and their small, cramped nest at the rear of the plane were incredibly vulnerable. They were the first ones to see and sometimes even feel the bullets the Nazi airplanes spewed into the bombers. And, too often, the bombers retuned to England after the bombing raids with no tail gunner at all.

On March 24, 1944, Nicholas, who was 21 years old, and his bomber group were tasked with making a raid on Berlin, the German capital city. And the attack was scheduled, as many were, at night, when it would be more difficult for the enemy to see the bombers. Three hundred planes were sent on the mission. Now, once the bombers crossed the English Channel, they were over enemy territory and thus susceptible to anti-aircraft fire as well as the harassing German fighters, fighters that were much faster than the lumbering big bomber.

Nicholas’s plane, a British Lancaster bomber, had a crew of 7 men. They had dropped their bombs, and they turned for home. That’s when a small squadron of German Stukas, a heavily armed fighter/bomber, attacked. Nicholas and the other gunners tried to fend off the Stukas, but their plane was shot up badly. It caught fire. It began to spiral down towards the earth. There was nothing Nicholas could do but abandon the burning plane.

When he landed, Nicholas was quickly captured. He’d sprained his leg when he landed, so he had to be assisted by the German soldiers who captured him. The Lancaster had crashed nearby, and four of his fellow crewmates never made it out of the burning plane. Nicholas was taken to the local Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) headquarters for interrogation. That part was routine; the Nazis wanted to know the location of Nicholas’s airbase, what the number of planes were in his squadron, and other such information that might help them in the war. Of course, Nicholas didn’t reveal anything other than his name, rank, and serial number. Oh, and he told them about jumping out of the burning plane, of course.

And that’s when the Nazis began to doubt Nicholas’s story. How did he manage to jump out and survive when four of his fellow crewmembers didn’t, the Nazis wanted to know. His tale seemed too incredible to believe. The plane was at 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) above the German nation when Nicholas bailed out. Something didn’t add up about his story, the Nazis said. Yet, Nicholas insisted that his version of what happened was the truth.

The Nazis called him a liar. They made the injured man return with them to the crashed Lancaster. They forced him to show them where he was when he jumped. And then he pointed to his parachute. That’s when the Nazis shook their head in disbelief, but they had to admit that Nicholas was telling them the truth. You see, the charred parachute that Nicholas pointed to, the one that he was to use in case of the bomber being shot down, was still in the plane, still lying in the burned out wreckage of his tail gunner’s position.

And Nicholas Alkemade had somehow survived when he jumped 18,000 feet to earth without it.