TOBY NEAL explains why wartime censorship means that relatives of two boys killed by the delayed explosion of a German bomb will never know exactly what happened.

The friends lie side-by-side in Cleobury Mortimer’s cemetery

The beautiful rolling hills above the village of Cleobury Mortimer were an incongruous place for two young Shropshire pals to lose their lives at the hands of a German bomber during the height of the Blitz.

On Good Friday, 1941, teenagers Eddie Sutton and Ernie Edwards cycled out of the town to a nearby spot where, during the night, a Luftwaffe raider had harmlessly dropped its bombs.

What they could not have known was that one of them was a delayed action bomb.

It went off in the early afternoon. The explosion was heard down in the town by Eddie’s younger brother Doug.

Eddie and Ernie were killed. Because of censorship, the incident was reported in the newspapers briefly, and in vague terms – the location was given as “a West Midland district”.

The friends are honoured on a roll listing Britain’s civilian war dead, and it was recent features in the Shropshire Star trying to find out more about the 11 Salopians on the list which prompted Doug and his brother Tony to come forward on behalf of the Sutton family to talk about Eddie, as a tribute to his memory.

Eddie’s death was a hard blow which left his mother devastated.

She had already lost two sons. Leslie, 25, had died only the previous year, and Jim was just 20 when he died in 1934, both from disease.

Cleobury was then a much smaller place, and the events of April 11, 1941, reverberated through the village.

“We didn’t go to the funeral. Mum didn’t want us to go,” said Doug, who lives on the outskirts of the town.

That funeral was on Easter Monday. All civil defence branches were represented. The large procession was headed by the choir of which Eddie had been a member.

Both lads were ARP (Air Raid Precautions) messengers. They lie in side-by-side graves in Cleobury cemetery, the inscriptions saying that they died as a result of “enemy action”.

Curiously, the graves give both their ages as 18, whereas reports consistently give them as 17.

What exactly happened? Why did they go there in the first place?

Contemporary reports say they were off duty and were looking at the bomb craters. With the wartime security blanket – the bombs dropped fairly close to Cleobury station, which was linked to a major ammunition dump at Ditton Priors – speculation and rumour, the passage of time, and of course the fact that the two people who knew most were killed, Doug and Tony are to some extent still without answers.

Doug said: “We don’t know how many bombs were dropped. The bomb which killed Eddie and Ernie was a delayed action bomb, which was quite unusual.

“We had been to church because it was Good Friday. We came out at 12 o’clock. According to reports, Eddie and Ernie were seen talking to the police. There was a local man with a car and I think his brother in. I think they were going up there. The police decided to go with them. They were followed by Eddie and Ernie on their bikes.

“We don’t know why they went up there and we shall never know. Whether they were directed up there, we just don’t know. Earlier on in the day, apparently, there were a number of people and youngsters about there. It’s difficult telling you this story because it appeared that Eddie and Ernie were the only two people there when they were killed, which would be about quarter to one, I think.

“Apparently it (the bomb) was down in another crater. How it got there we can’t understand, but that was what was definitely said at the time. It was a tremendous explosion when it went off. Eddie took the full blast. Both were killed outright.

“The police arrived in the late afternoon to tell us. I think they knew because their bikes were there.”

Tony said: “Around 1pm I was at the bottom of New Road when somebody came up to me and said ‘Is it right that your brother has been killed by a bomb?’ I went home and they did not know then.”

Eddie was one of eight Sutton children who survived childhood. The family lived at New Road. He was an assistant at Duerden’s chemists in the town, while Ernie, from The Wells, was a factory hand. They had been to school together and were best friends.

Eddie’s father was a bus driver who also did some baking at a local bakery. He was also an ARP warden and verger of the church.

Doug and Tony are among four surviving Sutton brothers. They have never been to the spot, although one brother has.

It took a little asking around to find the exact site of the tragedy, at a speck on the map called Dinmore, a mile or so north east of Cleobury.

A knock on a door brings a yes-I-know-where-it-is and a yes-I-can-show-you. My young guide takes me into a grassy field next to the rough track leading to Dinmore, only around a couple of hundred yards from the property. In one part there are some folds and dips. It’s here … or maybe this one. We settle on the deeper, roughly circular dip in the ground which, with not too much imagination, is an old bomb crater, softened by 68 years of weather and erosion.

Tony said: “Both of them were very respectable boys who never got into trouble or anything like that. They have a book in Westminster Abbey listing everybody killed during the war by air raids. Every day they turn a page. One of our friends went down there and was there when the page was turned – and Eddie’s name was on it.”

“He was a good brother,” said Doug, sadly.