It is a story that gives us far, far better reasons for remembering this attractive little town.

At about 01.30 in the morning on Friday 2 June 1944, a long goods train was chuffing and clanking its unhurried way across the darkened landscape towards Soham from Ely. Although World War II was reaching fever pitch, with the whole Allied effort in top gear for the imminent invasion of Europe, and the buzz-bombs still landing on London, around Soham all was quiet apart from the odd owl hoot… and the passage of the train.

Benjamin Gimbert, driver

People would not have slept so soundly had they known what the goods train contained. Forty-four of its 51 wagons were loaded with 500lb and 250lb bombs destined for an American air base. Six more were loaded with fuses, detonators, tail fins and release gear for this fearsome weaponry. All was stacked and roped carefully to prevent mishap and covered with fire-resistant tarpaulins.

The signals were clear to allow the train through Soham as it steadily approached. Something made driver Benjamin Gimbert glance back along his train, although everything had been checked at the last stop. Now Gimbert was horrified to see flames licking up at the corner of the first wagon behind his coal tender.

He pulled the whistle cord to alert the guard in his brake van at the rear of the train. Both had the sense not to apply their brakes sharply. Sending stacks of bombs tumbling over would not help, so the heavy train slowed for maybe two minutes to a halt about 200 yards before Soham station.

James Nightall, fireman

The driver remained at his post while telling fireman Jim Nightall to get down on the track and run back to uncouple the burning wagon from the rest. He told Nightall to take a coal hammer, in case the coupling was too hot to handle. This uncoupling done, Gimbert opened the regulator as Nightall climbed back onto the footplate and sped the one burning wagon away from the rest of the bomb-laden train.

As he passed through the station he slowed to yell to the signalman, Frank ‘Sailor’ Bridges: ‘Sailor – have you anything between here and Fordham? Where’s the mail?’ He knew the mail train was due and didn’t want to endanger another train with his burning bomb wagon.

Bridges was another case of a quick-thinking man doing his duty. He had seen exactly what was happening from his post, had not only made sure the mail train was not yet in that section, but also protected the rear of the stricken train by sending a warning bell to the previous signal box, and further requested another engine to come and extract the rest of the train. Now he rushed to the platform edge carrying a full fire bucket in a forlorn attempt to douse the flames as the now brightly burning wagon rolled past.

Frank Bridges, signalman

But signalman Bridges was never to answer driver Gimbert’s desperate question. A deafening, massive blast blew the wagon to shreds, the 44 high explosive bombs exploding like simultaneous hits from several Flying Fortress aircraft they should have been dropped from. The station was instantly reduced to rubble, the line to a huge crater. Signalman Bridges was killed by the blast, as was fireman Nightall.

Amazingly, driver Gimbert came round some 200yds away on the grass outside the Station Hotel where he had been flung. The burnt and bleeding man staggered, dazed and unbelieving to his feet and asked the startled townspeople who came running whether his fireman and guard were safe. He was kept away from the smouldering crater where his engine had been, and taken to hospital. There, characteristically, he refused to be carried on a stretcher, saying he was too heavy, and walked in, with support.

Typically for the get-on-with-it era – compared to today where a line is closed for five weeks after an accident – the railway and military, including some US Army engineers with bulldozers, worked like demons to restore the vital rail link. The crater was rapidly filled in and the earth tamped solid, the wreckage removed by breakdown trains and new rails and sleepers rushed forward by willing hands. By 20.20 on the same day both tracks were open for traffic again where there had been a gaping pit just hours before.

Soham’s station had been completely destroyed and was never properly rebuilt; 13 houses were damaged beyond repair and much of the rest of the town suffered broken windows and lost slates. Several townspeople were injured. Yet had the whole train and all its bombs gone up, had the engine crew merely jumped from the train and run as simple self-preservation would have suggested, or unhitched just the engine to make their escape faster, the whole town would have gone and most of the people with it, leaving just a smoking wasteland. Hundreds would have died.

60th anniversary memorial

In the following month driver Ben Gimbert and fireman Jim Nightall were (posthumously) awarded the George Cross, the highest honour the King could give civilians, and the London & North Eastern Railway awarded them silver medals too.

At the time, with the D-Day invasion of Europe going on, their heroism was hardly noticed, with plenty of other heroes dying elsewhere to think about, plenty of bigger bits of history being made.

Eventually all the men involved in Soham’s deliverance would be remembered in plaques at the church, and even today you may see two modern diesel freight locos named Benjamin Gimbert GC and James Nightall GC rumbling around the system, maybe over the very spot. ‘They are not the first locos named after those two since the war, nor will they be the last,’ said one railwayman.

But for a memorial, who can better the six opening words of the minister at Soham Church, also saved from certain destruction, where the villagers gathered to give thanks for their miraculous escape on the following Sunday? As the wind whistled through a few missing window panes blown out by the blast, the minister started: ‘But for men such as these…’