WWII Hitchhiker

I was an airplane mechanic stationed in England in 92. I was told when I first arrived to my shop that England is the most haunted country on earth; don't be surprised if you see something. They told me about the local stories and I listened to them; some were pretty far fetched and some were quite interesting.

I had to rent off base because there wasn't an opening for base housing. The nearest place I could find was in the village called March. This village was about 35 miles north of the base and is at the other end of the moors. The moors are a drained swamp land that is used by English farmers to grow sugar beets and potatoes. The land is flat and empty in all directions and has sections of hedgerows and forest for protection from wind erosions. This land is always covered with heavy patches of fog at night and is not a good place for a car to break down. I always breathed a sigh of relief after passing through the moors.

I always picked up hitch hikers in the moors because; for one.... It was an unwritten law in the village (told to me by my English neighbour) that this is the only way a lot of the local farmers coming from the fields get home and some that work at factories get to work ( something I wouldn't do in the U.S.A.). I made a lot of good friends in England doing this small service and they still write to me this day.

One night I was coming home from work about 2am and I was about half way through the moors. The patches of fog were heavy that night and I would drive about 300 yards in total blindness with 100 yards of open sky.

I had just come out of a bank of fog, when I noticed a man standing beside the road. He was dressed in a bluish-gray coveralls and looked to be wearing a welder's helmet. Under his arm looked to be a torn white-gray bed sheet trailing behind him. I drove pass slowly and he gave no indications that I was there and he looked to me like he was lost.

I was thinking to my self, this is strange, it's late at night, should I stop and pick him up? I for one, would not like to be caught in the moor's at night. So I stopped and backed up. I saw him start to approach the car out the left rear window (I owned a British car at the time, an Austin Mini). I reached over to unlock the passenger door to let him in. The dash lights and headlights went suddenly dim and the car started to run rough. I scanned the dash looking for an oil light or something out of the ordinary. Suddenly all power came back to the car and it started running smoothly again.

I looked back over to see what the hitch hiker was doing and he was gone. I said to myself (what's going on? where did he go?). Stupid at the time, I took a flashlight out of the glove box and got out of the car. I looked around thinking he might have fallen in a ditch and needs help. I searched for about 2 minutes and could not find anyone. The hairs on the back of my neck began to rise and I got some serious goose bombs. I got back into the car thinking I need to get out of here and the moors.

A couple of days went by and I didn't tell anyone of my experience. I thought that I had been tired from the long hours at work and long drives home. I was coming home from work a few days later and the British Police had the road blocked off in the middle of the moors. I got out of the car to see what was going on.

The British Police told me that a farmer had found an old German bomber from World War II (Hienkel 111) with crew still on board. I approached the crash site, being curious and morbid. I noticed the crew members from the bomber (what was left of them) were wearing bluish-gray coveralls and wearing a leather flight helmet that looked just like a welders cap. Also, one of the crew members had an parachute torn and shredded next to him that was greyish-white, deployed and trailing away from him.

I think he wanted to go home...