http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3192879
Ww2 Pilot Apologises for Bombing Church
By Tom Wilkinson, PA News
A German Second World War bomber pilot today visited a 1,000-year-old church he targeted by mistake and apologised to villagers.
Willie Schludecker, 84, shook hands with churchgoers who remembered his inadvertent attack on the picturesque Saxon St Andrew's Church in Bolam, near Morpeth, Northumberland, 62 years ago.
The pilot jettisoned his deadly cargo of four 500kg bombs as he dodged British Beaufighter pilots sent to intercept his Dornier 217 which was on a run to bomb Sunderland.
One landed in the churchyard, another punched a hole in the church wall but failed to detonate inside, while two more exploded in a field behind the church.
He viewed at first hand the damage caused and was particularly touched to see a stained-glass window which marked the spot where his bomb failed to detonate.
The widowed Roman Catholic father-of-one, from Zulpig near Cologne, said afterwards: "I'm speechless, this is wonderful to feel such friendship here.
"I was very interested to come here, I felt very bad when I found out I had hit a church - I was aiming for the railway line but very pleased that it did not go off.
"I am sort of here to apologise.
"When I first came to Britain in 2000, I was introduced as a bomber pilot and I was afraid of people's reactions. But everyone was so friendly.
"They said it was just the war and that I was just doing my job."
Mr Schludecker was greeted at the church today by the Whaley family who were awoken at 4am on May 1 1942 as his bomber almost clipped the chimney of their home less than a mile from the church.
He revealed today how one crewman had suggested their home as a target, but that he refused and picked out the nearby railway line which they missed.
John, 83, Chris, 81, and their sister Joy Scott, 86, thanked him and shook hands with the pilot as they chatted through an interpreter.
Joy, who still lives half-a-mile from the church, told PA News: "He was only a little lad when he did this, just 21 or 22, and he was doing his job.
Mr Schludecker, who went on to be a power station electrical engineer, managed to fly his plane back to Holland, despite damaging its wings in the steep dive.
But three months later his plane was severely damaged in a dogfight over Bedford, and he was badly injured in a crash landing back in Holland, ending his bombing raids.
Mr Schludecker this weekend visited his former foe from that day, Peter McMillan, now living in Hove, Sussex. They first met in 2000 and have become friends.
Both reunions were organised by wartime air expert Bill Norman, of Guisborough, Cleveland.
Mr Norman said afterwards: "It has been absolutely super.
"I think what Willie demonstrated here is he doesn't feel any animosity towards his opponents from 60 years ago and he is pleased to find they don't bear him any either."
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