Bombing of Blueberry Island
At a recent Board of Directors meeting, the subject of finding a picture of Blueberry Island with blueberry bushes on it was requested and in the discussion we mentioned the “Bombing of the Island”. No one else on the Board remembered it and it was looked on with skepticism, so I went to check it out.
I could find nothing in the “History of Sutton” book, no one at the library knew any thing about it, or the Historical Society so I reverted to some of the long time residents on the Pond for confirmation. Remembering that this was at the start of World War II - early 1940’s, there were a limited few, but they came through for me.
As best as I could piece together from our discussions this is what happened: at shortly after noon, an Army P-40 airplane flew over the Pond, circled back and from a higher-level dove directly down at Blueberry Island, pulling up and dropping two bombs (weighted bags) that fell on the Island in a huge splash of mud and water. On the shore, the YMCA was conducting a nature course and the “bombs” just missed them. The plane flew off never to be seen again.
There was a man from the Worcester Telegram visiting Dick Richardson and they took his boat to go to the Island but were not allowed to land. They said they did see one of the bags and some batteries but were told not to say anything. I guess this is why we could find nothing in the records about the incident.
On the southern end of the Pond, Andy Sandborn had erected a swimming float with a fairly large diving tower, Bill Eklund and Bobby Johnson were diving from the tower when the plane went over their heads.
It goes without saying that this was talked about for a long time after, as the YMCA had a full house at the time, there were people on the Pond that were not there in the winter and a lot of older people that had nothing better to do than discuss this event.