ON a cold and damp November evening in 1937 a Royal Air Force Westland Wallace biplane made a forced landing on playing fields at Barnsley Grammar School.

The plane's pilot was Pilot Officer George Greaves, later a Wing Commander. The aircraft had been on a flight from Hucknall, the base of the No 504 (County of Nottingham) Bomber Squadron, to one of the bombing ranges on the coast when, during a snowstorm, it had engine problems making a forced landing necessary.

The pilot circled the town before bringing the plane down. Although it was a very skilful landing the rugby field where it landed was too small for it to take off again and the plane had to be dismantled by Royal Air Force mechanics and taken back to Hucknall on a lorry.

The aircraft almost crashed into a barbed wire fence, but the 16-year-old co-pilot had the quick presence of mind to jump out and pull it round just in time. No sooner had the plane touched the ground people came running from all directions.

The plane had bomb-holders under the wing and a machine gun swivel in the back cockpit.

The date of the forced landing was November 21, 1937 and it was seen by three eye witnesses, one of whom was former Barnsley police officer Sam Heppenstall.

“I was 11 years old and I was walking along Peel Street near the Ritz Cinema when I saw the biplane. I had been fishing and I was walking home at the time. The plane was obviously having engine problems as it was very low and the engine was spluttering. Then it stopped altogether.

“I found the plane had landed in the rugby field at the rear of Holgate Boys’ Grammar School in Shaw Lane near to a barbed wire fence which surrounded a quarry owned by the Chamberlain Brick Company.”

Wing Commander Greaves later spent some time in America where he commanded flying training schools.