The bomber crash that sent Tolkien racing from his home

As I reported here in a recent post, Tolkien enrolled as a Second World War air raid warden on 29 September 1941. Thanks to further evidence that has since emerged, I can now suggest why.

Exploring the background to his decision to put himself forward, I’ve already written here about the Luftwaffe’s Blitz on British cities. In that same post (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), I show the stark photographic proof that German bombers had north Oxford in their sights.

But after posting that, I postponed writing about one truly explosive incident that may have influenced his decision to enrol.

This was a bomber crash in the next street, bringing the realities of war almost to the Tolkiens’ doorstep. From home at 20 Northmoor Road, 16-year-old Christopher Tolkien witnessed the plane’s descent and the resulting fireball. J.R.R. Tolkien himself rushed to the scene and helped in the aftermath.

In the event, Kristine Larsen has pipped me to this blog post with an excellent piece of research in the online Journal of Tolkien Research. Hers is just the kind of investigation I appreciate – a dive down rabbit holes that turns up some really unexpected findings.

The result of meticulous investigation spanning two years, her article says much more about the crash than I could find from online newspaper reports. And it goes well beyond the immediate incident, as I’ll note in a further blog post about the connection between Tolkien and Nobel-winning biologist Peter Medawar, who also dashed to help out after the accident.

Below, I’ll outline the plane crash much more briefly, then discuss what Larsen says about Tolkien’s air raid duties in the Second World War.