Going down in a Fairey Battle

In teaching the short story here at Plymouth, one exercise sprang from local news items. A touching one from Exeter's Express & Echo (24/11/08) told of an Exeter couple's 67th wedding aniversary. Harry Dolling, now 87, had sweet things to say of his wife and their first meeting. What struck me though was the power of story in people's lives; the fact that he used the anniversary as a chance to look back more to a separate vivid incident of more than sixty years:
Harry: 'One of my best mates, Greg Gregory, who came from North Devon, was a gunner on a Fairey Battle and I remember how one day his plane was coming in to land and we looked up to see a German fighter launch an attack. It shot up Greg's plane and it just fell out of the sky in flames.
'We looked up to see Greg standing up in the rear cockpit. There was nothing he could do to get out and he just stood there with both thumbs up until the plane hit the ground and blew up.'