Contact from Preston Durrer Webmaster 87th Infantry Division Legacy Association

American Soldiers - Biddulph, Staffordshire, England - World War Two

Hello Nigel,

Thank you for contacting us.

I can confirm that elements of the 87^th Infantry Division, specifically the 345^th Infantry Regiment (my father’s regiment), stayed in Biddulph for a short while before embarking to France.

From an official standpoint, this is documented in our history book, which you can download here:

http://87thinfantrydivision.com/History/HistoryBook/index.html

Download the “Combined History Book”.  This is a PDF document that is text-searchable.  When I searched on “Biddulph”, two references from the 345^th section were found.

A search of “Biddulph” on our web site provides these three links:

http://www.87thinfantrydivision.com/Commentary/000002.html

http://www.87thinfantrydivision.com/History/345th/Personal/000025.html

http://www.87thinfantrydivision.com/History/345th/Official/index.html

Good luck with your project.  If I can be of further assistance, don’t hesitate to ask.

Best Regards,

Preston

Preston Durrer

Webmaster

87^th Infantry Division Legacy Association

Son of Whitelaw Durrer, D-345

Plane Crashes at Brown Edge - 16th August 1944

I have been given an interesting letter which ties in with some information I had about a plane crash at Marshes Hill, Brown Edge. The letter reads as follows:
Dated 16/8/1944
Dear Ma, Doris and Fred,
Please to hear you landed alright and I think you have choose the right week for your holidays this time. Hugh and family came over on Saturday afternoon and went back on Saturday night, evrything wentoff OK. Bill went back on Sundaynight and missed his train at Derby as usual, I went to the cricket match on Tuesday and experienced something unusual, an american bomber was saluting the players (at Knypersley Cricket Club) and caught one of the large trees againstthe pool, tore the tail of machine off, soon after one of the engines started to smoke and he had to make a crash landing at Brown Edge. Dr. Miller and Murphy and some nurses rushed off to the place in an ambulance. There wre five in the plane, four men and one lady. They were very fortunate to get off with a few bruises, but the plane burned out. So cheerio for now and all the best,
HH