This year being the 80th anniversary of the Battle Of Britain has prompted one amateur historian to renew the research into a number of aviation crashes that he first started more than two decades ago.

Nigel Staniforth explained: "When I was a child, my grandparents on my mother's side, Kenneth and Florence Hughes, used to tell me how they and my Uncle Roy had witnessed a German Dornier 17 bomber come down on Barnehurst golf course on September 15, 1940."

"Later I discovered that my great grandfather, on my father's side had also witnessed a wartime crash. He saw an American Douglas A20 bomber crash by his home in Erith .

"He swore that pilot had deliberately guided the plane away from his house to crash into a nearby allotment - and if he hadn't done so, it would have certainly killed my great grandfather and I wouldn't be here today."

Mr Staniforth did his best to research the crashes 25 years ago, and got a long way, but felt he never got the complete story.

He said: "Some of the reports seemed contradictory."

His grandparents had witnessed the Dornier fly over, while being pursued and machine-gunned by two Hurricanes, but it seems it may first have been damaged by ack-ack fire over Chatham.

In any case the plane came down, with three of the four-man crew bailing out, though only one survived - one is thought to have bailed out too low, the other may already have been injured by the Hurricanes' strafing.

Mr Staniforth said: "The local people rushed to crash scene and found the pilot emerging from the wreckage covered in yellow die."

The die pouch on the his life-jacket - used to help rescuers find crew that had crashed in the sea - had burst.

Mr Staniforth said: "Some accounts say the German tried to warn people to stay away - because their bomb-load was still on-board."

Sadly the warning went unheeded and shortly after a bomb did go off killing a number of civilians including the local police constable and an ARP warden who had been trying to warn people away.

In his quest for accuracy, Mr Staniforth even tried tracing the two surviving German aircrew.

He said: "One had died in 1987. In 1996, I managed to reach the wife of the other, only to find that he had died the year before."

On the American crash he was able to get details from the United States authorities about two of the aircrew who died, but not the third, and again there seemed to be some mystery about the cause of the crash.

He said: "It seems it might have hit one of our own barrage balloons in poor visibility.

"The bombing raid they were setting out on was subsequently called off."

During his research Mr Staniforth, 54, also came across other crashes that have piqued his interest.

He said: "I left it for a long while, but with this year being the 80th anniversary, I suddenly realised that now is probably the last chance to hear from anyone who knows about these crashes.

"I would be very grateful if any KentOnline reader who knows anything would get in touch with me - even if they didn't witness them themselves, but perhaps only heard about them from their parents or other relatives."

He is interested in the following:

* German Dornier 17 bomber which crashed on Barnehurst golf course on 15/09/40

* German Me109 which crashed in Welling Kent in October 1940

* RAF Hurricane crashed in Old Bexley in 1940

* German Dornier 17 which crashed in Bexley in November 1940.

* US A20 bomber which crashed in Erith in 1944

Mr Staniforth can be contacted by email to nigels66@sky.com

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