Eighty years ago, on December 24, 1944, Hitler sent a Christmas message to a Shropshire town.

Hitler's Christmas Eve attack shook complacent northern Britain.

nostalgia pic. Shropshire. nostalgia pic. Newport. Shropshire airfields. This is a leaflet labelled V1 P.O.W. Post which was one of a number in a V1 flying bomb which exploded near Newport on Christmas Eve, 1944. It is in the possession of John Durnell, of Fron Lwyd, Hirnant, near Penybontfawr, Oswestry, SY10 0HP, 01691 870686. He was given it by a lady who was a lorry driver on the railway at Newport - possibly Mrs Crabbe of Railway Terrace. All these leaflets, which purported to be messages home by Allied POWs, were confiscated by the authorities at the scene so this original copy is extremely rare. John Durnell was born in Wellington on March 9, 1932. Age 80 (in 2012). As a youngster he lived in Barnfield Crescent, Wellington, and would visit wartime air crash sites and also make lots of notes of aircraft and things he saw. He served on the railways, then in the police, and later was ordained and became the Rev John Durnell. He was rector at Church Aston for 11 years until 1977. Library code: Shropshire nostalgia 2012. Shropshire airfields nostalgia 2012. Newport nostalgia 2012.

The blast from the V1 flying bomb which narrowly missed Newport smashed windows but caused no casualties. But when people inspected the site they found something remarkable.

The V1, which was also colloquially called a "doodlebug", had been stuffed with post - letters home from British prisoners of war. They were compiled into a leaflet headed "V1 P.O.W. Post" and finders were asked to forward the letters to the relatives concerned.

For example, Staff Sergeant Raymond Jolliffe, of Whalley Range, Manchester, wrote to his wife telling her about his injuries, and concluding: "Dearest darling I love you always and I can wait forever if it is necessary. Don't forget, if you are short of money to let me know. I can get some to you (I am saving a lot whilst here). Send some fags if you can, all my love, Raymond."

A postcript below signed by "Burger, Oberst und Lagerkommandant," read: "You can rest assured that regarding the health and welfare of your husband he gets all the attention possible."

The leaflets contained letters from British prisoners.

The discovery of the leaflets, along with copies of Signal, a German propaganda newspaper, sent the authorities into a tizzy, as they suspected it was some Nazi ruse, and great efforts were made to confiscate them all.

At least one of the leaflets slipped the net, coming into the possession of a local lady lorry driver - possibly a Mrs Crabbe of Railway Terrace. Years later she gave her memento to the late John Durnell, a curate in Newport and later rector at Church Aston, who was interested in wartime history.

The flying bomb had exploded at 5.40am on Christmas Eve in a field at Middle Farm, Chetwynd, just east of the modern Newport bypass and not far from a railway bridge which was known locally as Griffy Bridge. According to police the motor had cut out over Stafford and it then glided to the impact point, where it left a surprisingly small crater of only about 18 inches deep.

The small crater is confirmed by recollections of some locals who went to have a look, and their memories point to the V1 being more intact than might have been expected, raising the possibility that it did not fully detonate, or the space taken by the leaflets meant there was a smaller explosive payload.

Ted Brotherton told in 2003 how he and his schoolboy pals dashed to the impact site on their bicycles and played on V1, using the wings as a seesaw.

“It did not go off. Me and my mates were down there at 8 o’clock in the morning playing on the thing when the police came and fenced it all off,” he said.

George Price was staying that Christmas with his uncle, Newport police constable Harry Davies, and recalled him coming in after being out all night on the V1 and saying it did not completely detonate.

“My cousin, his son Doug Davies, would be 12 or 13 at the time and we went to see it. It was in the corner of the field down in a small crater and was intact but for the nose, which was missing. There were some rabbit holes and slight damage to the hedge. We couldn’t find anything to take as a souvenir, as it was all intact, complete with the rocket motor on the back. The wings were on it.”

And when Arthur Hawkins cycled there with a friend on Boxing Day there was not much to be seen as most of it had been taken away. There was hardly any crater, he was to recall, although he found a small piece of debris which he took away as a souvenir.

Arthur Hawkins with his souvenir of the flying bomb in 2003.

For Newport it was a lucky escape, for if the bomb had flown for just a few more seconds on its westerly course the damage could have been devastating. Even as it was, the blast broke a considerable number of domestic windows in the town, as well as 16 plate glass windows.

Although the nearest houses were 300 yards from the impact point, it was estimated that about half the buildings in Newport suffered some sort of damage. The crater was roughly 20 feet in diamater. Photographs were taken of the scene, but none have ever come to light.

Reporting of the incident at the time was constrained by wartime censorship, but in December 1945 the Newport Advertiser was able to give a fuller account.

“The bomb had fallen in a ploughed field occupied by Mr Shilton, some 300 yards from the Newport to Gnosall road. When dawn broke there was a stream of sightseers to the spot, but what they saw was ridiculously unimpressive.

“The remains of the bomb lay like a huge dead fish cast up by a rough sea. There were two causes for surprise - the smallness of the crater and the fact that the bomb retained any vestige of its original shape," it reported.

Newport had narrowly escaped being a victim of the last major V1 flying bomb attack of the war. German bombers over the North Sea had launched over 30 flying bombs towards northern England. One of them came down among terraced houses in Oldham, killing 32 people.

It was popularly supposed that the idea of the leaflets was that people would reply to the soldiers' letters, and inadvertently give the Nazis clues to where the bombs had landed.

Whether or not that is correct, the effect of the attacks was to shake any complacent assumption that northern areas were safe.

A secret weekly report by the Ministry of Information noted: "The arrival of flying bombs in the North was a rude shock to complacency. People had got the impression that, so far as they were concerned, the danger of air attack was over."