The location

Baron Victor de Tornaco bought the castle of Voort — “Le Château de Voordt” — in 1868. From 1919–20 it was lived in by Baron Raymond de Tornaco. Around it lay the castle farm, a park, a pond and the wood over which the Lancaster turned that night.

The aircraft first hit the roof, then struck the ground immediately in front of the building. A ruptured fuel tank set everything alight; the castle burned out completely and was demolished later. Anyone visiting today stands in a landscape from which the building has vanished.

Eugène Timmermans worked on the castle farm and saw the fireball come over the Molenberg. Seventeen-year-old Lucie Goignard helped at the farm. Farmhand Jean Warnots used a ladder to get the maids Eliza Ryckmans and Simonne Marguillier out of the roof gutter, where they stood ready to jump. Albert Buttiens, hiding on the estate to avoid forced labour, helped fight the fire — as did the baron himself.

The stories of that night are scattered across a few square kilometres of Haspengouw: the meadow on the Molenberg at Broekom where pilot Johnson was found, the fields near Bommershoven where rear gunner Billows came down, the tarred road between Heers and Horpmaal where Williams landed, and farmer Paulissen's gate at Widooie where the navigator knocked at five in the morning.