Belated Thanksgiving greetings to the good folk of BW.com from here in England. I hope you all had a great day. Of course, it’s not a festival here in Blighty, but I thought you might like to hear about my lunch on Thanksgiving Day; I think you’ll find it of interest.
I was spending a couple of days with a friend at his caravan in Kent, down on the southeast coast. On Thursday we went a couple of miles down the coast to Dungeness. Now, Dungeness is certainly not “chocolate box” England. It’s a large area of shingle jutting out into the English Channel, flat as a pancake and quite otherworldly. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t technically a desert, but you can see why people might believe it is. I like it, but many folk find it bleak and depressing. The presence of not one, but two nuclear power stations only adds to the slightly surreal feel of the place.
We went for a late lunch to The Pilot Inn, a well-known pub first built from the timbers of the Spanish ship, the Alfresia, wrecked there in 1633. Little (if any) of the original building survives and the place certainly doesn’t resemble the horse brass hung, low beamed English pub of tourist brochures. Nevertheless, it’s a good pub, with food, beer, and service all above par. Don’t worry, I’m not about to post a picture of the excellent, and pretty big, steak and kidney puddings we had for lunch, but I am going to talk about the beer we drank.
It’s a beer unique to The Pilot, brewed for them by the local Romney Marsh Brewery. It’s an American Pale Ale with an abv of 5% called B17, or to give it its full name, B17 Sleepytime Girl. Yes, it’s named after a USAAF B17 Flying Fortress.
In 1944 the B17 called Sleepytime Girl, of the 385th Bomber Group, took heavy flack on a daytime raid over Germany and all four engines stalled. They managed to restart the engines by diving 5,000 feet. The crew then voted to try to make it back to Britain, rather than neutral Switzerland, which was closer. On the way they were repeatedly attacked by German fighters and by the time they were over the Channel only four of the ten-man crew were still alive and only one of the engines was working. Rather than possibly crashing on land, with the risk both to themselves and British civilians, the survivors ditched in the Channel just off Dungeness. The four men were rescued and the Co-Pilot William Nesson, received a posthumous Purple Heart.
In 2017 two local fishermen snagged something big and heavy while fishing off Dungeness, it turned out to be part of the engine and propeller assembly from Sleepytime Girl! The relic was installed as a memorial in the garden of the The Pilot and B17 beer was commissioned. Every year the pub holds a memorial service for the brave men of Sleepytime Girl and one of the propeller blades is dressed with poppies.
So, while people across America were giving thanks for the various blessings, my friend and I were standing giving silent thanks for the sacrifices of thousands of young men from the States who came here to fight for freedom. I’ll leave you with the words from the pub’s information panel for the B17 engine.
“Please take a few moments to reflect on the extraordinary sacrifices that were made for us, in order to free occupied and oppressed peoples and to ensure our own freedom and way of life.”
5 replies on “A different Thanksgiving story”
Well I think thanks should go both ways. If it were not for the English and their own love of freedom and liberty, America would have never been born, and without the US England might not have survived WWII. There were a lot of young men on both sides that gave their all. Thank you for the wonderful story.
Thanks, that’s a great story and you put it together well.
I’ve never been to Dungeness, probably flew over it once or twice unknowingly.
Every time someone mentions the beer in your country I get a nostalgia kickback. I lived in Watford, Herts for a while. For my money, the people of the British Isles (and their descendents on other continents) make the best beers in the world. Germans make good beers, Brits make great beers. My favorites being any decent Bitter, which cannot be sold as such here because Americans won’t buy a beer called “bitter” and …
Scotch ales. Dark brown, foamy, thick and malty. I don’t know if they’re called the same there in UK, it’s something I’ve only discovered since I’ve been back here in the US these many decades now. That’s my winter beer here with a red or a pale ale as my summer beer.
There is no such thing as an American mass-production beer that’s worthy of the name “beer” but we do have some decent imports and dandy micro-breweries. Some of those have caught on and grown to the point where they no longer fit the “micro” description. I still remember the days when Budweiser, Miller and various lesser labels were all that could be had here in the U.S. so there are likely people younger than me that don’t know what I’m talking about because now they can get decent beers here. That was not always the case (pun intended) in America.
It’s ironic too that the B-17 Sleepytime Girl beer is an American Pale Ale, being as that style/type of beer didn’t come into existence until around 1980 or so. 40~ years after the War that claimed the B-17 it’s named after.
Anyone interested in this topic has probably had an American Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is quite common now in stores and actually closer in color to a red than a pale. Even things sold as India Pale Ale here are not the same as what you have in Britain due to differences in the hops, yeast and malt produced on this continent. They’re good just not the same. American beer making has come a long way in my lifetime.
Now that here in America we’re past the Thanksgiving Holiday and the decorations are going up as Advent begins I can start saying one of my favorite phrases of the entire year so …
A Merry Christmas to you and yours Davy. Aside from beer, Christmas is another thing that Brits do exceptionally well, or at least they used to. I still have very fond memories of two Christmases spent in your country.
Thanks, Davey, for another interesting vignette between our countries. If I ever see B-17 on the menu here in the states I’ll give it a try – I like Pale Ale.
It’s a lovely beer. Maybe a bit strong for a long session but well worth a try. I had a look on the Brewery website and they don’t sell it, as it’s produced exclusively for the pub. The pub does sell it in bottles as well as draught.
Well, darn. Guess I’ll just have to visit the pub for that beer. Maybe, if I ever do, you’ll give me a tour😉