During the war years Husborne Crawley was to experience several dramatic events. Two incidents involving British Bomber planes are recalled by Betty Williams and Joan Healy.

The first incident was on 9th September in 1941 and involved an RAF Hampden bomber.

Betty Williams (nee Stapleton) recalls: In 1941 I was a young girl living at 62 Crow Lane. I remember the occasion of the plane crash in what we called then the 'Football Field' just by Horsepool Lane. It was the middle of the night when a British plane that was in trouble passed over the village.

As it came in low, a couple of the crew managed to bail out, but one poor fellow got his parachute caught up in the top of one of the high elm trees that used be along beside the road, and was left dangling upside down from its branches. He began calling out for help and his cries were heard right across the fields, 'Please help me, please help me,' he was calling. 

My father, Bert Stapleton, ran to his aid and climbed right to the top of the tree to release him. They took him to the first aid post, which was at Mr Collin's Dairy. I believe one other man survived but I think two others were killed when the plane hit the ground and their bodies were taken to the Bull.

I can't remember the name of the airman but I do recall that a few years later he came back to the village to find my father and Mr. Collins to thank them for rescuing him and he then went on to come and visit us every summer for many years.

The second incident was in the spring of 1944.

I remember very clearly the events that took place one evening in the late spring of 1944, recalls Joan Healy (nee Battams). I was 14 years old then and I had been in Woburn Sands and was travelling home on the bus. It was about a quarter to eight in the evening and I was just getting off the bus.

As we stepped down someone screamed and we all looked up to see an enormous ball of fire coming right over us. I was pushed to the ground and we just lay there with our heads covered until we heard a crash a few moments later.

It was a plane that had passed over us and came down near the old church at Segenhoe just by Ridgmont. We didn't realise at the time what had happened but we heard later that there were about eight men on board who were all killed. It wasn't a German plane, it was one of ours which had been damaged and was trying to make its way home.

A friend of mine remembers the incident even more dramatically as she was courting at the time and was with her boyfriend under a tree right in the field where it crashed. The shock of it made her ill for a long time. Imagine, she had been right there in the very field!   
           
There was a third crash reported in the wartime incident accounts which occurred in 1945. The entry reads as follows:
22nd January 1945. 22.05: Beaufighter crashed at Mill Road, Husborne Crawley, 300 yards from Dr. Mann's house. Two in plane believed injured.