104-year-old care home resident recalls miraculous survival when his WWII plane plunged into the sea

Arthur aged 104 has revealed how the Torpedo Bomber he was navigating in WWII, ended up flipping over and plunging into the sea at 300 miles per hour, killing pilot Tony Adams on impact.

Arthur, who lives at Beach Lawns Residential and Nursing Home in Weston-super-Mare, run by Sanctuary Care, recalled: “Tony said, ‘I can’t hold it anymore' and a few moments later it turned over. As we fell, I knew we should both be dead within a few seconds.

"It went bang – straight down and disintegrated and Tony was killed on impact.”

The pair had been told to attack ships off the coast of Norway and were returning from their mission on 20 July 1944. They were 40 miles from shore when there was a loud noise and the engine ripped from its mounting and the plane nose dived into the sea.

Luckily for Arthur, fishermen on a nearby trawler had spotted the crash and one of the fishermen bravely tied a rope around his waist and dived into the sea to rescue Arthur.

The trawler had to make its way through a minefield before it could get Arthur safely back to shore.

“My leg was flopping about and my head was nearly scalped. Naval doctors came to see me, took one look at my leg and said ‘that will need to come off’. Someone else said ‘you can’t do that, he’s air force property’.”

They managed to save his leg and after seven months in hospital he returned home to wife Rachel.

The couple went on to have three children, Sheila, John and Peter. Arthur should never have been fighting in the second world war as he was hit by a tram as a teenager and because of this back injury was turned down for military service.

Arthur contested the decision persuading a doctor to write a note that eventually got him enlisted.

Arthur said of his war days that there was “no time” to be scared but added: “You would be sitting with someone chatting away, walk out to your separate planes, and the next thing you know they would be going down in flames.”