Balloon Barrage Historian, Peter Garwood has been at BBC Merseyside, Liverpool, recording an interview about a forgotten Liverpool wartime hero.

In January 1941, a deaf and non-verbal youth, Frederick T. Boneham, aged 17, was walking to work when he came across several R.A.F. men trying to secure a barrage balloon that had broken away in the gales and was blocking a road junction. Without a second thought, Boneham rushed in to help and was beneath the balloon hanging onto the rigging along with an airman.

The balloon was full of inflammable hydrogen, and the balloon brushed up against the naked flame of a lighted gas lamp and there was a massive explosion. Both men suffered severe burns and shock, and both died later that day, Post-war, the Airman was recognised as a War Death, but Boneham was not recognised as a civilian war death and appeared to have been forgotten.

Peter researched the story and in 2024, some 84 years later, made a case to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that Boneham should have been listed as a civilian war death. In August the Commission agreed and listed Boneham as a civilian war death.

The interview will air on BBC Merseyside / BBC Sounds on 1st September at 3.30 p.m.

Pete is a Wye Valley resident who is the Hon. Secretary of the Balloon Barrage Reunion Club and featured on a BBC Antiques Roadshow D-Day edition. He is a local expert on the topic of barrage balloons, which were a significant part of World War II defenses, and he was featured on the show discussing the 320th Balloon Barrage Battalion, which was stationed in Abersychan, Monmouthshire, before D-Day.

The battalion erected barrage balloons over the D-Day beaches of Normandy to protect landing troops from German aircraft.