British Fighter May Have Stopped German Bomb Run On Buckingham Palace In WWII

As the Battle of Britain raged at its worst during World War II, British Hurricane pilot Ray Holmes faced a terrible choice. He was out of ammunition and had spotted a German bomber headed for Buckingham Palace in London.

It was September 15th, 1940. A strike on the royal residence would undoubtedly have sent British morale down the drain. Holmes figured he had just one choice: Ram the Dornier.

That's just what he did. Then he bailed out.

His Hurricane sliced through the Dornier's empennage. The bomber crashed into Victoria Station. Holmes' Hurricane slammed into Buckingham Road, in London's city center, at almost 350 miles an hour. It was pretty much buried under a water main. The road was paved over and the wreckage never recovered.

Until now.

Archeologist working at the crash site Monday unearthed the Hurricane's engine, rudder, control panel and other pieces as Holmes, now 89-years old, looked on.

"Well it's such a mess that it is hard to realize that it came out of the airplane," he told a Channel Five TV show documenting the dig as he watched work crews unearth the Rolls Royce engine.

The wreckage will go on display at Westminster's "West End at War" festival June 12-13. Footage of the aerial battle will be shown on a big screen at Leicester Square. Afterwards, the wreckage will go on permanent display at the Imperial War Museum.

The excavation has been the pet project of archeologist Christopher Bennett for a dozen years. Sunday's discovery of the wreckage and Monday's excavation were "the culmination of a project that has taken hundreds of hours of work," he said.

FMI: www.westminster.gov.uk/leisure/westendwar