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Endcliffe Park


Endcliffe Park is a large park in the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The park was opened in 1887 to commemorate the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Endcliffe Park comprises parkland as well as woodland. The portion along Rustlings Road is grassy and used as a recreation whilst the Northern border, separated from the recreation grounds by the Porter Brook, is woodland, and is traversed by many paths.

The entrance to the park was a toll bar on the Hathersage Road. Next to the entrance is a Grade II listed pavilion.

To the left of the park's entrance is the Hallamshire Tennis & Squash Club.

The park features two monuments dedicated to Queen Victoria. Near the entrance is a statue of Queen Victoria and midway up the path towards Whiteley Woods is an obelisk also in honour of Queen Victoria. Both originally stood at the top of Fargate in Sheffield city centre. A tree planted by the Lord Mayor of Sheffield to commemorate Queen Victoria's Jubilee stands near her statue.

There is also a memorial stone marking the crash site of the USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress "Mi Amigo". On 22 February 1944 the aircraft was returning, heavily damaged by defending Me-109 fighters, from a bombing mission over Aalborg, Denmark. Around 5pm it crashed in the park with the loss of all 10 crew. An annual memorial service organised by the Royal Air Forces Association is held at the site on the Sunday closest to 22 February.

The full story of the brave crew of the 'Mi-Amigo' is told in a book published in June 2014 on Amazon Kindle by local military historian Paul Allonby, called Courage Above the Clouds. This book uses military documents from the USA, Denmark and Germany to piece together the mission, and the fateful combat with the Me109s of 11/JG11 who were among the Luftwaffe fighters vectored to take on the 64-strong diversionary formation of B17s, whose mission was to draw fighters away from a larger US 8th Air Force bomber stream heading towards targets in Germany.


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