Buried Alive

HE Medals of Flight Lieutenant John Topham, who had an exciting war, are going on sale in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. Details of his amazing wartime adventures came to light as Distinguished Flying Cross with other medals and some memorabilia were put up for auction.

Flt Lt Topham enlisted in the RAF when he was living in Bedlington, Northumberland, becoming a Lancaster bomber pilot in 514 Squadron.

He was on a raid against a German flying boat base in Normandy when disaster struck in August, 1944. His Lancaster was crippled when a higher flying aircraft dropped a bomb on it.

John Topham was able to skilfully crash land his Lancaster near the town of Beaumont. He suffered a broken leg but was found by members of the French Resistance, who hid him in the local schoolhouse for two months.

The German Army commandeered the building and he was smuggled into the home of M Duval. SS patrols began house to house searches and the 6 feet 2 inch tall bomber pilot was hidden in a 4 foot deep makeshift grave in the back garden.

He was able to breath through a rubber tube and the townspeople decked the grave with flowers. They told SS officers that it was the grave of an RAF pilot who had been shot down and killed. The Germans saluted the grave.

It was expected that he would only have to spend 30 minutes or so in the grave. However the Germans posted two sentries close by. It was to be 36 hours before he was exhumed.

He had no way of knowing if Mr Duval had been arrested or even shot and if he was to be left underground.

This was not the of his tribulations, He was recovering from his ordeal in the kitchen of the house when an SS officer was spotted approaching the building.

The resistance people wanted to re-bury him but he absolutely refused to go back underground. The Frenchmen left him with a loaded pistol and he shot the SS officer as he entered the room. The German replaced Topham in the grave. Advancing Allied Troops reached the town and he was repatriated to Britain.

John Topham had flown 26 bombing missions over Europe before being crash landing in France. The citation for his DFC remarked on the amazing hardships that he had endured.

After he was demobbed, he returned to his previous employment as a constable with Newcastle Police before reenlisting in RAF Transport Command.

John Topham later retired and settle in the Chapel House area of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was knocked down by a lorry in Stanhope Street, near St James Park Football Ground in 1975 at the age of 58.