In September 1942, a Douglas Boston night-fighter broke up and crashed over an area of Haslemere, Surrey known as Shottermill. The three aircrew died instantly and their story has largely gone unrecorded until last year on the 70th anniversary of the air crash when it was featured in a BBC South TV news broadcast which is available to view on YouTube. One local resident was instrumental in raising awareness amongst the current residents of the town and has campaigned successfully to raise funds to erect a memorial at the very spot in Shottermill where one of the aircraft's main engines came to rest having having first smashed through the roof of the Rex cinema in Haslemere where mercifully no one was injured. 

The fighter was part of the "Turbinlite" project which was conceived at the height of the Blitz in late 1940 to counteract the presence of enemy aircraft and to give our boys eyes in the sky before the introduction of radar.  The Turbinlite was a 27Mw candle-power carbon arc lamp consuming 14,000 amps mounted in the front cone of a fighter aircraft, turning the fighter aircraft into a flying torch which lit up the sky to a width of about 950 yards at a distance of about a mile.   Based at RAF Tangmere in West Sussex,  the particular Aircraft was on an exercise on the afternoon of the 22nd September 1942 when it was last seen heading north in pursuit of a contact. It was next seen emerging from low cloud over Hindhead common and descending at speed into Polecat Valley followed by its eventual disintegration and break up over Shottermill. The memorial stone was unveiled on the 22nd September 2013 and to mark this event.