“Ambrose”

The aircraft was named 'Ambrose' by its pilot, 1st Lt. John Packy Roche, after his alma mater, St. Ambrose College. It served in the 330th Bomb Squadron, 93rd Bomb Group, a unit later chronicled in the book 'Ted's Traveling Circus.'

Ambrose took off from Holmsley South at 07:20 on October 29, 1942, with a crew of 12, on an operational U-boat patrol over the Bay of Biscay. The aircraft turned around at 11:30, and roughly three hours later, in heavy rain and poor visibility, it clipped Bossington Hill and crashed into the marsh at Porlock, not far from where a memorial now stands.

Eleven of the twelve men aboard were killed; Staff Sgt. H. E. Thorpe was the sole survivor. The pilot at the time of the crash was William J. Williams II. A memorial was erected near the crash site by the Porlock branch of the Royal British Legion; its small plaque is made from wreckage of the aircraft.