Tributes have been paid to a forgotten American hero who helped save 18 lives in Hunstanton during the East Coast floods in 1953.
US Air Force Sergeant, Freeman Kilpatrick was one of only five Americans ever to receive Britain's George Medal for an act of bravery and one of only two to do so in peacetime.
Mr Kilpatrick, 87, who lived in Bossier City, Louisiana, died on August 1 after a long fight with cancer.
The modest hero's exploits have been overshadowed by fellow George Medal winner and American, Reis Leming, who helped save 27 lives on the night, and now has a path and a bus named after him in Hunstanton. The same honours were being lined up for Mr Kilpatrick before his death, and Hunstanton town councillor John Maiden said the plans are now going ahead. Mr Maiden said both men were still regarded as heroes in the town.
Speaking to the EDP on the 40th anniversary of the floods, Mr Kilpatrick said the publicity he had to endure after the event was more traumatic than what happened on that night.
He was a staff sergeant based at RAF Sculthorpe and living in a Hunstanton beach bungalow with his wife Sara and their daughter Suellen on the night of January 31, 1953.
He was due to go out that evening with his wife, but when he stepped out the door and witnessed the storm surge, he immediately ran to other local houses to warn them. By the time he returned water was washing through his own house and the family had to get out onto the roof. Their house was washed away and they spent hours clinging onto the roof before they were rescued.
He told the EDP in 1990: 'I suppose I first realised something was wrong when I looked out over our front yard. We were right on the beach when I noticed a stream of water. I reached out and tasted it and it was salty. The water started coming up real fast and I just went down the street with another neighbour and warned everyone and took them to higher ground. The house we took them to was the only one that was left standing out of 18 the next day.'
One of the Hunstanton people rescued that night was Neil Quincey, now 89, who lives in Nelson Drive in the town. He said it was very sad to hear about the death of Mr Kilpatrick, who lived next door to him at the time. He said: 'I appreciate everything the Americans did on that night.' Mr Kilpatrick later told his own story of that night and his time in England in the book Home Bases – Memories & Stories of US Military Bases Around London, which has just been published.
His son Alex Kilpatrick said on behalf of the family: 'Without a high school diploma he rose to the second highest enlisted rank in the air force, worked all over the world, witnessed the atomic bomb and the space race first hand, and managed to raise a family along the way. He was the least educated and smartest man I have ever known, and he will be sorely missed.'
He has requested that anyone wishing to give money in his father's name should donate it to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in England where his father's daughter was treated post birth. Mr Kilpatrick had been born in Perkins, Georgia, and had joined the US Air Force and been sent to England in 1951 to work at RAF Sculthorpe as part of the USAF Third Air Force's 39th Air Division (Operational) and the 47th Bombardment Wing.
Would you like to pay tribute to a hero in the EDP? Email david.bale2@archant.co.uk
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