1st Lieutenant Arthur Brown | The 4th Nantwich Brownies & Brown Owl Karen Lynch

“The young American pilot’s fate has become interwoven with the town’s history.”

In this episode of we speak with Brown Owl Karen Lynch and the 4th Nantwich Brownies about the incredible story of 1st Lieutenant Arthur Brown, a 23-year-old American airman whose heroic actions during the Second World War left an enduring legacy in Nantwich. 

On Friday, 14th January 1944, Arthur's Thunderbolt plane developed a fault over the town and he courageously diverted the aircraft saving countless lives.

Arthur, who hailed from New York, USA, has never been forgotten by the community he saved. A memorial in Nantwich stands as a tribute to his bravery and selflessness, ensuring his remarkable story continues to inspire future generations.

Be a part of the memorial service:-

SUNDAY 12th JANUARY 2025

12:45pm: Congregating at Brookfield House, CW5 7AD (w3w: ///carpeted.digital.blotting)

12:55pm: Follow behind the Parade

1pm: Service at The Airman's Grave. (w3w: ///panting.rationed.repelled)

If you would like to feature as guest on a future episode of This Place, Our Voices, submit your application via our form: https://bit.ly/podme

"This Place, Our Voices" Credits:

Host: Elyssa Germain
Produced By: OneZeroCreative https://www.onezerocreative.co.uk/

Transcript

This week's very special guest is Brown Owl from the 4th Nantwich Brownies Methodist or as us non-Brownies may refer to her Karen Lynch. Welcome Karen.

Thank you very much for inviting me along, Elyssa.

You're very welcome. So, talk to us about something very special to Nantwich - First Lieutenant Arthur Brown. Can you tell us his story and why he’s important to the town of Nantwich?

Well, yes, so he's an American airman from New York. And he unfortunately crashed his plane into Nantwich its quite a well-known story. And obviously something went wrong with his plane, hence the crash. And he was on a training mission, and it was ahead of D Day and that's what he was part of. And we'll never know what actually happened with his plane, but it crash, landed into this area which was farmland at the time belonging to the farmer Mr. Philip George. And it crashed along Shrewbridge Road, behind the houses there and into that fire land where the river is now and that's where his memorial is. There's lots of reports of, you know, children at the time and people who were in that town at the time saying they heard the noise and lots of people running over to see if they could help. But unfortunately, the plane had gone down into running sand there so it couldn't be recovered. But you know, the townspeople are forever grateful for him diverting onto that farmland rather than quite close to a school and homes. You know, his poor mother all the way in New York. That must have been absolutely tragic for her to hear this. But my understanding is that Mr. George the farmer contacted Leslie's mother because he was known to the family as Leslie. He didn't really like to be called Arthur recently discovered he like Leslie better. So, he contacted her with the idea of creating the memorial for her son and recognising, you know, his extraordinary sacrificial actions really that saved the lives of many inhabitants of Nantwich. Because you know, if he hadn't crashed where he had on that farmland near the River Weaver, then could have been an even bigger disaster, couldn't it?

Absolutely.

But he's only 23 when he died.

That's no age, is it?

It's not. It's not really. It's not really at all. So Mr. George, he built this memorial. So, you must be wondering what's that got to do with Brownies? What's that got to do with brownies who are not military personnel. But, well, Mrs. Hollowood, who was the Brown Owl of the 4th and Nantwich Brownies at that time, wrote to Lt. Arthur's mother, expressed her condolences, and they kept in touch for a very long time. And I've since learned that she would send parcels as well to his nephew. And, kept connections, go wrote letters, sent Christmas cards. It was so lovely. But as part of what she was doing as well was taking the Brownies down quite often, I believe once a month on a Sunday. And they put flowers down and sort of generally keep that area tidy and look after it. And you can probably find some quite old photographs online of those Brownies in their really old Brownie uniform. And it looks like they're in the middle of a field with this small railing around, because that's what the memorial looked like, you know, in the 1940s. Latterly, the Brown Owl obviously grew up and, it became too much for her. But some of the Brownies continued the tradition of tending to the grave together. So Mrs. Gladys Henshall assisted with Margaret Brown, and they were Brownies. And, they have come on occasion when we've been down there as well. So that's been lovely to meet, particularly Margaret. I'm sure I've met Margaret. They continued with this tradition for many years. And there's also a memorial tree in that same area for Mrs. Henshall in recognition and thanks for her dedication. And I think there's one for, Mrs. Henshall as well. I think they're down there. So that's quite, you know, a nice lending a hand thing that the Brownies did. So when I took over this Brownie pack, oh, about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I can't remember now, you been a little, Been a little while. Been a little while. So when I discovered that this had been going on, I thought, well, you know, we can, we can carry this on. And at the time I was already a member of the Royal British Legion, my husband's ex-army, so I already knew about the remembrance services that were going on there. So off we appeared one Sunday morning or afternoon, whichever it was, with our flag and said, can we pray, please? And of course, they weren't going to say no. and so that's what we've been doing is joining in with the parade and laying a wreath annually and going and having a little bit of a tidy around. And our most recent sort of lend a hand tidy around if you like, was in October. We went down in half term and there was two Brownies there was Isla and Marnie and then new brownies to the packers one, there were only seven. And, we were there for a good, good part of the morning. My goodness me, how many leaves. You forget that it's a really wooded area. Yeah, it is in autumn. Where are the leaves going? And bless them, they were there. They worked so hard, as I'm sure that they will mention at some point. And they were determined to get every leaf. They wanted it leaf free. We're having this leaf free. Brown Owl and Tawny Owl came as well. So we worked really hard. And then at the end of it, we made a new floral tribute with some little red, white and blue silk flowers for the grey area. So that looked a little bit neater.

So why is it that Lieutenant Brown is such a major part of Nantwich life 81 years on from that tragic day?

Well, I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that people are so grateful, so thankful that he did, avoid the town. And, there has been a recent anniversary of the crash, sort of 80 years anniversary where we had a huge parade through the town and where we ended up at the airman's memorial. And that was in recognition of this brave act. And he was given a posthumous award of the Freedom of Nantwich. And that was awarded to his nephew Christopher Maus and his lovely wife. They came over from America to Nantwich. and we had this parade and Daisy, who's here with me, my lovely Daisy. Brownie.

Hello, Daisy.

Hi. And Daisy, you played quite a part in that. Do you want to tell Elyssa what you were doing?

So when we were walking down, you would say it was very soggy and wet and that just made it a bit more interesting. And I got to hold a Brownie flag that resembled we are the Brownies. Fourth Nantwich Brownies. And when it was raining, my hands nearly froze because of the pole and it was so cold. And when we walked down, it was just amazing to see that there were people playing music. And, the amount of people there was just astonishing. I think it's just extraordinary. 

Not to let an opportunity go by at the end of the service that was held there with, as Daisy just said, there was loads of people, wasn't they, Daisy? There was lots of sort of dignitaries with, you know, their big chains around their neck. And there was also some American Air Force representatives and they came in their uniform and we were there and there was lots of, with air cadets and army Cadets and all kinds of, you know, dignitaries from across ne twitch from the Royal British Legion as well. And, not to lose out on an opportunity afterward. Remember you had your photograph taken with the other Brownies that came. And I invited him to come and visit the Brownies the next day because that's when we were meeting. I thought, well, before he goes back to America, it would be really nice to come full circle where he had been receiving cards throughout his boyhood from previous a couple of Brown owls ago to come and visit our Brownies and perhaps share some of the story. And he came and do you remember what he showed you?

So he brought in a scroll. It was a scroll about. Was it freedom?

It was called the Freedom of Nantwich, and they've never given that award before to anybody in Nantwich. So he brought that into Brownies for you all to have a look at. Can you describe what that looked like?

It looked like it was made out of silver. I actually got to hold it and it felt a little bit heavy. And I think he would have been really chuffed and felt amazing that he actually got that award.

I think that's what he said to us, didn't he? Couldn't believe that. You know, a small town all the way over in United Kingdom, in England, in Nantwich in Cheshire. In Nantwich, every year for the last 80 years, doing a remembrance service for his uncle.

Yeah.

So he really felt he had to come over and accept this, didn't he? And, can you remember what we gave?

Was it that scrapbook that we made for him? So did we take some pictures and we put it in and made a little scrapbook for.

That's right. We did, didn't we? We gave him a scrapbook of older Brownies from the 1940s, 50s, 70s ones I could find online because, you know, people upload, their old photographs and ones of all of you together cleaning and parading your flag.

Yeah.

Doing all the things. So The Brownies presented Mr. Maus with this small scrapbook, as Daisy described, full of photographs of various visits to the memorial and remembrance parades over the years and forth. And Nantwich Brownies are going to continue to pay tribute to First Lieutenant Arthur Leslie Brown at, the next remembrance service in January. And we'll be remembering the work, really, that Mrs. Hollowood and Mrs. Henshall and Mrs. Brown and all the previous Brownies have done. And we will continue to continue to.

Lend a hand and keep tidying the area and make sure everyone remembers, Arthur Brown.

So how is it that People can show their support this coming Sunday, 12th January.

People from across Nantwich, are, well, wherever they want know locally, are very welcome to come and join the service, which will be on Sunday. And we usually congregate in the, Shrewbridge car park. It's the bumpy car park. The carpark people park their cars to walk their dogs around the lake. We meet there. some people will stand near the memorial sort of side, and we will be parading down with probably, air cadets and army cadets.

And I think that we should keep remembering him and it's just really important that we do remember him.

People are very welcome to come down and join in and be a part of this. It seems to be growing as well over the years that more and more people are coming and probably because it's now a separate standalone event, not on Remembrance Sunday with lots of other ones. So, and I think people are able to take time out and come and as Daisy says he said he must not be forgotten. And we're. Really very grateful, aren't we?

Yeah, we're very grateful.

We like to remember the other Brownies as well.

Yeah, we do.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all of this to us, Karen. And thank you so much to the other Brownies that have taken part for this podcast. And, of course, thank you very much to Nantwich Methodist Church as well for letting us record this.

Thank you very much for, coming to meet us. We've really enjoyed it. I think the Brownies have really enjoys seeing how a podcast work and what goes into that. But we will say, won't we, Daisy? I've never seen a group of chatty Brownies go so quiet so quickly as soon as that microphone was out.

Oh, it's common, it's common. Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you.