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Mount Bures Community Web Site

 

 
 
 

 




Arthur Charles Brown:- Ellecourt Cemetery


On the 5th July 2014, Ellecourt held a Commemoration Service for the
70th Anniversary of the Lancaster bomber of which A.C.Brown was a crew member


Additional information supplied by Mary Kemp from Morienne, Normandy.

Sgt Arthur Charles Brown Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 463 (RAFVR) Sqdn
Arthur Age 21, Service Number 1399195 and the son of William and Alice May Brown, of Valley Green Farm, Mount Bures


 

All the villagers, led by the Mayor attended the grave side. One crew member George Dowling was represented by family members from Australia.

Mary Kemp and her grandson George because of all the research we had done and so we felt we were representing Arthur and the other two British crew men involved.
After the ceremony at the grave side we had a mass in the Church then a meal in the village hall.
At the meal Mary played the National Anthem on her violin.
The meal began at 12.00 and lasted until 7.30 in the evening and consisted of 9 courses!!

It was a wonderful day, although very few of the villagers could speak English.
The atmosphere was one of real warmth and communication.


There were several villagers who remembered the crash.
The lady in grey who was 11 or 12 at the time, had seen George Dowling dead, his body still intact in his rear gunner position.
It had affected her all her life and she was very emotional when she met the Australian family.

Update March 2019 by Mary

We had always kept a house in England so that is where I am now, though I regularly go back to Morienne ( the next village to Ellecourt where the Lancaster crashed).
George, my grandson managed to make contact with some of the Australian families connected with the crash and they have been to stay with me a couple of times here in England.
In 2014, ( see above) Ellecourt had a 70th commemoration service and although it was shortly after the death of my husband an Australian family with George and myself attended.
Their family member was the rear gunner ( tail end Charlie) and his name was George Dowling though always referred to as Titch.
I felt that George and I represented the English families. We were all treated so beautifully and I played God save the Queen on my violin! The French villagers were delighted and sang the Marsailles and they had a recording of an Australia anthem! French village life is difficult to describe but utterly unique. One of the villagers and old lady now, had witnessed the plane crashing and had made it her life’s work to always put flowers by the graves each year.


With sincere thanks to Mary Kemp for these marvellous photographs.
Additional research by Alan Beales
31/07/2014
updated 04/03/2019