It was on May 12th 1944 at 7:43 am that the big oak came
down. Edmond Eyre had been keeping an eye on that tree on Llancadle Farm for
over a year. Ian had finally given him permission to harvest the tree and it
came down with a resounding crash. It was cut up into proper lengths and hauled
off to the lumber mill and turned into a number of large beams. One of which
was destined to shore up the thatched roof of the Green Dragon Inn in Llancadle
proper. The roof had a tendency to catch fire a couple times a century and the
latest owners were looking for some security from previous mishaps.
The tree itself had an interesting history. The acorn it
grew from was on its way to be roasted and used for flour by another man named
Eyre. This man named Eyre came from Co Galeay, Ireland. His first name is lost
to history but he was one of the fortunate few to escape the Irish Potato
famine of 1847.
The good ship Wanderer docked in Newport and deposited
113 destitute men, women and children with 20 of them said to be close to
death. Our man Eyre was one of them and was foraging far and wide a few months
later when he came upon a great store of acorns near Alberthaw. The pile of
acorns was on the grounds of what would become the Boys School there. He
gathered all he could in his pockets and moved on to find other edible forage
to bring back to his family. Acorns could be used for flour if properly treated
and many a life was saved during times of famine in Europe. Eyre knew this and
was hedging his bets. On the way back to New Port our acorn fell of his pocket
and started to germinate that spring on Llancadle Farm.
It was amazing to think that the huge oak just needed
sunlight, water and some common nutrients to become the colossus it was. How
from a little acorn no bigger than your big toe it turned into the towering
shade tree that it had become. And then
in another amazing transformation to the pieces of lumber that kept many a man
women and child warm and out of the elements for possibly another century or
more.
The tree that Edmond Eyre cut down was close to a hundred
years old and was the spawn of our acorn. That 96 year old tree would have
taken the life of Edmond Eyre’s distant relative, Commander Anthony Eyre on
Saturday 16th, 1946. As fate would have it the huge oak was not there to send
the metal rod through Edmonds heart, for all that was left was a stump.
Therefore Commander Eyre’s Tempest NV787 had no obstacle to impede its progress
as it plowed into the ground after a failure in the sleeve drive mechanism
caused the engine to seize after takeoff.
Commander Eyre was an RAF ace with 9 victories before
being shot down over France after being married for only 68 days. He was sent
to the infamous Stalag Luft III for three years. After the war he was on a
routine flight when the incident that should have taken his life occurred. Fate
rules all and the tree that he should have crashed into was not there. Parts of
it were scattered in places like the Green Dragon and surrounding homes in
Llancadle. Anthony Eyre’s distant relative planted the tree that was destined
to take his life. Another of his relatives
cut it down thus saving his life.
Eyre was itching to get into the fight again. He had sat
out the last three years of the war in Stalag III and was ready to fly in
earnest once more. They offered him one of the Gloster Meteors but he preferred
to stay with the Tempest for the upcoming festivities with the Soviets.
Something about the roar of a propeller ripping through the air was ingrained
in his heart. The high pitched whine of a jet engine just didn’t sound right to
him yet just yet. He’d move on to the Meteor or Vampire soon he supposed.
After that close call with his last Tempest and the
touchy drive sleeve mechanism he was a little jumpy. He had been told that his
most likely opponents would be the Lag 7 and Yak 3. They had the range to fly
at low and medium altitude over Group 11 and most of Group 12 with drop tanks.
Both were formidable opponents flown by seasoned veterans. This would be
interesting if the 5 to 1 odds turned out to be true.
He had of course crashed before, the first time in his
first flight in a Gladiator. He never thought he would live that one down. The
last war started in earnest and it was readily apparent that the Gladiator was
obsolete with only one scoring an air to air victory against the 109. The
switch to Hurricanes came just in time for Eyre to get 3 kills in May while his
squadron was constantly on the move running from the marauding Panzers in
France. During the Battle over Convoy Bosom in the Channel he shot down three
more 109s. Being sent to Preswick for a little rest defending Group 13 became
an unwelcome reprieve after only a few weeks while the battle raged on over the
skies of Britain.
In December, 1941 the now Wing Commander Eyre was flying
with the “Circus” and trying to lure German fighters into battle over France
when he was shot down. By fighting over enemy territory you lose home field
advantage and the pilots that do survive and end up jumping out of a damaged
plane also end up in an enemy prison camp. On March 8th, 1944 the newly wed
Eyre crashed landed once again but this time near Abbeville in his Spitfire and
spent the remainder of the war as a POW.
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