This is an incident that has been on my research list for quite some time.  I gave a little information and a photograph to Andy Plant and he did a magnificent job of researching it.  What follows is the story, in his words, which I have made no attempt to rewrite and it is published here with his permission.

LEADGATE REMEMBERS at this special time of year, four brave Free French Airmen who died at Bunker Hill Leadgate on Friday 26th May 1944.

Two images from Leadgate War Memorial

Rene Richard – Raoul Blot - Jean-Lucien Fischbach - Alexander Ponton

After the fall of France in June 1940 French airmen started to form units with the backing of the British and later the USA in The Middle East and Africa where bits of the French empire had been. As the war went on units flew in the war in North Africa and Italy, and one squadron flew from the Soviet Union. In the UK several Squadrons of the RAF were set up consisting mainly of Free French airmen.

In May 1944 the first of two bomber squadrons of Free French were formed at RAF Elvington, York. These were 346 “Guyenne” Squadron and later 347 “Tunisie” Squadron. Most of the aircrew had been serving in North Africa until 1943 before transferring to Britain as part of Bomber Command. At its height there was some 2000 French aircrew based there.

The airmen were sent to RAF Lossiemouth in the north of Scotland for training. There they worked with No 20 Operational Training Unit (George Cant from Leadgate had died earlier in the war flying with the unit in 1942).

On 25th May 1944 one crew set off from Lossiemouth on a night exercise flight in Wellington X ME553, JM-F. The crew were Capt. Rene Richard the pilot. Lt Raoul Blot navigator, S/Lt Alexander Ponton bomb aimer, Sgt Jean Fischbach wireless operator. Lt Jean Vles navigator, Sgt Guy Soury-Lavergne air gunner, and Sgt Gilbert Allain air gunner.

During the flight they encountered severe icing at 15000ft.They descended to 7000ft but it did not improve and they were all ordered to prepare to abandon the aircraft. . Before anyone did the captain felt a slight improvement in the Wellington’s handling and at about 1.00 am on Friday 26th May attempted a force landing at what he thought was an airfield. In fact he came down in a field at Bunker Hill farm in Leadgate. In the crash landing and subsequent fire Richard, Blot, Fischbach, and Ponton died.

The four killed were buried at Harrogate Cemetery on May 30, 1944, by the RC Padre, the bearded and pipe smoking Father Meurisse.

Rene Richard was born on 16th October 1907 at Altkirch in Alsace Northeast France. At the end of the war he was reburied at Brookwood Military Cemetery with over 240 other Free French Airmen.

Raoul Constant Valentin Blot was born on 22nd July 1917 in Evron in Normandy. At the end of the war his body was also moved to Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey.

Jean-Lucien Fischbach was born in Reims in Northern France on 6th December 1921. He was originally buried at Harrogate and after the war his body was repatriated to France

Alexander Ponton was born on 14th March 1917 in Antananarivo the capital of Madagascar. . He was originally buried at Harrogate and after the war his body was repatriated to France.

The three survivors had mixed fortunes:

Jean Claude Vles was born 12th February 1915 in Paris. Once he had recovered from the crash at Leadgate he returned to Elvington and 346 Squadron. Sadly he was shot down near Bochum in Germany near Dortmund on 4th November 1944 as part of the crew of Halifax III NA558. His father Fred Vles was a professor at Strasbourg University who was sent with many other academics to Dachau where he died on 2nd July 1944.

Gilbert François ALLAIN was born in Nantes in France 15th October 1916. He lived on after the war and died 2nd March 1983 at Hyres near Toulon in southern France.

Guy Marie Soury-Lavergne was born the 13th June 1921
at in Canada. When he recovered from his injuries in Leadgate he returned to RAF Elvington and became a part of 347 Squadron. On 2nd November 1944 he was the rear gunner on Halifax III LW443 which was shot down on a raid on Dusseldorf, just over the Belgian/German border. He was ordered to bail out and managed to evade the Germans for five days and nights to escaped back to Allied held territory. He re-joined his squadron and flew another 20 missions. After the war he went first to Madagascar and later to Indochina as a navigator. He then moved to Limoges where he one of the pillars of the Limousin Aero-club. He died on 10th August 2010 in Limoges.

You can find out more about the Free French Air Force and Elvington at these sites and others.

https://yorkshireairmuseum.org/.../french-squadrons-in.../

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOcILWnh0TE

https://tailendcharlietedchurch.wordpress.com/.../raf.../

There is no memorial to these four brave Frenchmen who died in our village, not do they appear on our war memorial.

Today Poppy Crosses with 'Le Bleuet de France' Cornflowers have been placed at our War Memorial to remember the four and their comrade Jean Claude Vles who died later in 1944.

Hawker Hart crash near Muggleswick

On 2nd August 1936 a Hawker Hart aircraft, serial no K6483 was on map reading and navigation exercises and flying at about 2,000 feet over the Castleside and Muggleswick area.  The engine cut out and the plane dived to earth but the pilot regained control and landed without loss of life.  He was Pilot Officer H.J. Williams but I have not been able to identify the navigator.

Unfortunately, during the landing one wing clipped a hayrick and the Hart somersaulted and landed upside down but the pilot and navigator suffered only minor cuts and bruises.  Later, two aircraft from RAF Thornaby circled the scene but were unable to land.  The men were driven back to the aerodrome at Thornaby on Tees and a tender was sent the next day to pick up the damaged plane.  It was repaired and returned to 608 Squadron where it continued in service for a few years.

As a post script to the story this plane had another accident in 1940 when it burst a tyre on landing at its home base.  Once again it was repaired and put back into service.

This aircraft was designed by Sidney Camm who later redesigned it as a monoplane - which gave a much higher speed capability and much greater manouvrability.  The new design became famous in World War II and was used to great effect in defeating the Luftwaffe.  By this time it was renamed the Hawker Hurricane

R1268 NZ – T Vickers Wellington Mk1c Medium Bomber

Wellington Bomber Mk 1c NZ-Q identical to R1268 NZ-T  Photo courtesy of The Aircrew Remembrance Society

It was early afternoon, around 1.30 pm, on 14^th December 1940, a Wellington bomber which had reportedly got lost over the North Sea ploughed into trees on high ground near  Edmondsley, five miles North West of Durham.  Well, bombers do come down in wartime, but not usually in this area.
 

Almost out of fuel, the plane was seen to make a hard right turn to avoid a farmhouse and the people in it.  At the crash scene the Wellington’s back was broken and the nose area, presumably the Perspex front gun turret was broken open.  The pilot was still strapped in his seat.

There were four crew members aboard, unusual as a Wellington normally carries six, and all were injured, three of them quite badly but all were alive.  They had probably dispensed with the gunners as it was a training flight for cross country navigation.  The alarm was raised and the injured were taken to the farm dairy, using an old door as a stretcher.  They were given morphine and first aid by Dr Mukerji, the local GP from Craghead, which was the nearest village.  They were then taken to Chester-le-Street Hospital and later transferred to York Military Hospital.

The crew were Flying Officer Marian Kostuch, Flying Officer Jan Stanislaw Waroczewski (the pilot), Sgt Stanislaw Boczkowski (second pilot) and P/O Edmund Stanczuk.  Flying Officer Waroczewski was later to become something of an unsung hero, as will be explained later.

There were various reports of this accident and most were generally accurate but a few errors had to be sorted out before the real picture emerged.  The aircraft was said to be a Mark III Wellington from 604 Squadron flying out of RAF Syerston.  But 604 was a fighter squadron (flying de Havilland Mosquitoes, Bristol Beaufighters, Gloster Gladiators and Bristol Blenheims) and did not fly out of RAF Syerston and the Mark III did not come into service until six months after the crash, nor did 304 Squadron ever fly Mark IIIs.  However, 304 Squadron had just moved to RAF Syerston and flew Mark Ic Wellingtons.

It was actually on a cross country training mission, not a bombing mission, as reported.  304 Squadron did not fly operational missions (i.e. bombing raids) until the following April. The circumstances were that the pilot had selected an emergency landing site but his wings iced up and his windows iced over at 3,500 feet and he lost sight of his chosen landing ground.  It must be remembered that this was one of the worst winters of the 20^th Century.  The pilot saw the farm at the last minute and his evasive action, a hard right turn, caused him to hit the trees on slightly higher ground.

A fellow researcher interviewed the surviving eye witness in December 2009 and was told that the aircraft approached from the direction of Blackhouse and did a complete 180 degree turn before pancaking and falling into a clearing in the trees.  This account squares with the sketch that he did at the time, which shows that the wings were still attached to the fuselage.  It is also borne out by the orientation of the aeroplane when it crashed and the fact that none of the older trees in the area show signs of an impact.  It also suggests that the Wellington stalled and simply fell out of the sky.  This may have saved the lives of the crew as the downward impact from a low level crash would be far less severe than a forward impact from a headlong rush through the trees and into the bankside.

Mindful of security, the only crew member able to walk, collected up maps and documents before allowing himself to be treated for his injuries.  Judging by the injuries sustained and his own description of the crash, this could only have been Sgt Boczkowski.

Once this was established, I tried to track down the crew.  I still could not identify the two unnamed crew members and M Kostuch did not appear in any further records I had seen, except an entry in the Squadron’s Operational Record Book which says that he returned to the squadron on 17^th March 1941.  Subsequently I discovered that F/O Kostuch is believed to have transferred to 301 Squadron and he was later awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari Silver Cross, 5^th class and the British DFC.  Little is known of his service after that except that he was posted to 300 Squadron on 21^st March 1945 from the Polish Depot at Blackpool.  He survived the war.  A fellow amateur researcher found more details and passed them on; the two missing crewmen were Sergeant Andrzej Boczkowski and P/O Edmund Stanczuk, who was also killed later in the war in a road accident.  Sergeant Boczkowski remained a mystery but I later discovered that he transferred to 300 Squadron and also won the Order of Virtuti Militari; he survived the war and emigrated to Canada.  Amazingly, I made contact with him through his son and he gave me his version of the crash – which closely agrees with another eye witness account but is obviously more informed  and is repeated here.

When he was posted to squadron 304, there was a brief period of time where nothing was happening.  To make the best use of such time he was told to report for a training flight with the crew of R1268 (NZ-T).  The purpose was to continue training of the two navigators attached to the flight as well as to allow Stanislaw Boczkowski to become more familiar with

that specific aircraft.

The plan was for a four hour flight and the weather was not too bad when we took off.  Flying Officer Waroczewski piloted the plane for the first two hours and then Stanislaw Boczkowski took over.  After a few hours in the air and while Stanislaw was at the controls, the weather got worse and the navigators lost their bearing.  They were to practice flying on instruments only.  The flight had no radio operator and therefore could not get a radio fix on their position. It was decided to descend and check their position by map and visual sighting.                                 

The aircraft went through the clouds and it began to ice up on the wings.  There was also trouble with the engines as they were running unevenly.  One navigator took Stanislaw's position and he sat in the radio operator's position; the other navigator  (Kostuch possibly?) went to the forward bomb sight.  Both positions offered a better view of the land being overflown.

The cloud cover at this point was quite low and heavy ice had formed on the wings.  The crew knew that the ‘plane was going to go down one way or the other. Waroczewski piloted the plane down as best he could with Stanislaw still in the radio operator’s seat and the navigator sitting in his seat.  Not surprisingly, Stanislaw does not remember the crash itself.                   

After the crash, Stanislaw climbed out through the nearest hole in the fuselage.  He thought that he had lost his right eye as he could see nothing out of it.  He clambered over to to the pilot who was badly hurt but conscious and still strapped into his seat.  Waroczewski asked to be pulled out of his seat but Stanislaw could not manage it due to his injuries.  All of Stanislaw's ribs were broken and the blindness in his right eye was caused by a skin flap from his forehead covering that eye.

The navigator, who had taken his seat, was no longer there - Stanislaw didn't know where he was.  The navigator who had been in the bomb bay was lying quite a way in front of the wreckage of the nose of the aircraft.  He survived but I think that he never returned to flying.  People came as, well as an ambulance, to help; Waroczewski was placed on a flat surface - possibly a door - and taken to a nearby farm. Stanislaw was taken by ambulance to a nearby RAF station infirmary where he was treated for four days and then sent back to his own squadron - 304.  He was given 10 days leave and immediately headed out to visit an adjoining squadron but was called back the next day and told to report immediately to join 300 squadron.

The Squadron  Operational Record Book is blank for the day of the crash but it was recorded in the Operational Record Book of RAF Syerston and the injuries were given as follows: “The captain of the aircraft F/O WAROCZEWSKI sustained a fractured wrist and laceration of the face and the injuries to the remaining members of the crew were F/O KOSTUCK (sic) damaged wrist and laceration of face, F/O STANCZUK fractured leg and laceration of face and chest, and Sgt BOCZKOWSKI injury to chest and laceration of face.”  The latter was actually that all his ribs were broken and a flap of skin from his forehead was lacerated and completely covering his eye – leading him to think he was blind.

Jan Stanislaw Waroczewski was born on 25^th December 1911 at Suchiednow in the Province of Kielci, Poland.  In spite of his injuries, he returned to the squadron and was, sadly, killed in another Wellington (R1392) on 28^th May 1941.  His aircraft was severely hit by flak, knocking out one engine,  whilst he was on a bombing raid over Boulogne.  He ordered his crew to bale out and one of them did so, over the target zone or over the sea,  but was killed and his body was never found, or was buried as unidentified.  The pilot (Waroczewski) struggled valiantly and regained control of the aircraft and managed to get it back to England on the other engine but fire in that engine sealed the fate of the aircraft.  Because of his heroic actions another two crew members baled out and survived with relatively minor injuries, but the plane crashed at Darwell Hole, near Brightling, Sussex.  Flying Officer Waroczewski and the two remaining crewmen were killed.  Their bodies were taken back to RAF Syerston (Nottinghamshire) and they were buried in Newark Cemetery – he was twenty nine years old.  He is also remembered on Panel 75 of the War Memorial at RAF Northolt.

More to follow soon - with more illustrations and the other surviving eye witness account.

PLEASE NOTE THAT SOME DETAILS HAVE BEEN REMOVED DUE TO THE IRRESPONSIBLE ACTIONS OF SOME PEOPLE WHO WERE SEEN WANDERING AROUND THE FARMER'S LAND WITHOUT SEEKING HIS PERMISSION.  PLEASE DO NOT COPY THEM.

CONTACT

Thanks to the anonymous person who left a comment on the Free French Vickers Wellington crash at Bunker Hill near Consett.  But this has shown a problem, in that I cannot contact you with any further news on the crash!

Comments are left anonymously so, unless you do not want a personal reply, please leave your name, or screen name, and email address at the end of your message.  I will edit them out before publishing your message/comment on the blog.

Alternatively email your comments to me on neville.bougourd@yahoo.com You can also use this email address to send me any information, photos, documents, press cuttings etc to improve existing entries or start new ones.

SPITFIRE CRASH NEAR HOLMSIDE HALL

Can anyone help with any details of a Spitfire that crashed near Holmside Hall, Craghead, on 3rd September 1948.  The pilot was Squadron Leader John Child who was the commanding officer of 612 Squadron from RAF Dyce (now Aberdeen Airport).  He was 30 years old and is buried in Edinburgh.  He had served throughout the war but the only details I can find are his promotion date (just before his 26th birthday) and the date and place of his death.

SQUADRON LEADER BG "STAP ME" STAPLETON OBITUARY

This refers to one of the pilots of Spitfire N3196 (see previous post) and is reproduced by kind permission of the Daily Telegraph.  The photograph was given to me locally but, if you can convince me that the copyright is yours, I will gladly credit you.

The Telegraph

April 2010

Squadron Leader 'Stapme' Stapleton Squadron Leader 'Stapme' Stapleton, who has died aged 89, was one of the outstanding RAF fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain.



Tall, blond and sporting a splendid handlebar moustache, Stapleton was the epitome of the dashing fighter pilot. As the Battle of Britain opened in July 1940, he was flying Spitfires with No 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron and saw action off the east coast of Scotland. He shared in the destruction of two German bombers before his squadron moved to Hornchurch in late August as the Battle intensified.

Within a few days Stapleton had engaged the enemy fighter force escorting the Luftwaffe's bombers, and was credited with probably destroying two Messerschmitt Bf 109s. By the beginning of September No 603 was one of the most heavily involved squadrons, and Stapleton accounted for a Dornier bomber on September 3 and a Bf 109 two days later – the latter flown by Franz von Werra, who later became famous as "The One who Got Away", being generally regarded as the only Axis PoW to escape from Canada and make it back to Germany.

On September 7 Stapleton's Spitfire was hit by enemy fire, but he managed to force-land his badly damaged aircraft. A young couple having a picnic in an adjacent field gave him a restorative cup of tea before driving him back to his airfield.

On September 15 (Battle of Britain Day) Stapleton shot down a Dornier bomber and damaged a fighter. By the end of the Battle on October 31, he had destroyed two more Bf 109s and probably a further three. On November 11 he gained his final success when he shot down a Bf 109 over Ramsgate. A few days later he was awarded a DFC.

During that summer of 1940, 13 of his colleagues were killed and others seriously wounded – including his friend Richard Hillary (later the author of The Last Enemy), who was badly burned.

When reflecting on the Battle in later life, Stapleton observed: "Despite the casualties, when I look back, I recall we also had great fun. It was an exciting time and we made the most of our opportunities to live it up. We tended to treat each occasion as if it were our last."

Basil Gerald Stapleton was born in Durban, South Africa, on May 12 1920 and educated at King Edward VI School in Totnes, Devon. He entered the RAF on a short service commission in January 1939 and, after a brief spell flying Blenheim night fighters, joined No 603 Squadron.

It was while he was with 603 Squadron that Stapleton got his nickname, "Stapme". It derived from the exclamation habitually uttered by the newspaper cartoon hero "Just Jake" whenever he spotted an attractive girl. Much to the irritation of his flight commander, Stapleton would pin the daily cartoon strip to the squadron's notice board.

In March 1941 Stapleton was rested, but he soon volunteered to fly Hurricanes catapulted off the deck of a merchant ship sailing with the North Atlantic convoys. He completed four trips without seeing any action before embarking on a second tour of operations as the flight commander of a Hurricane squadron (later Typhoon), flying bomber escort operations over France.

In August 1944, after a period as a gunnery instructor, he was put in command of No 247 Squadron, operating from advanced landing grounds in Normandy – where he discovered ample supplies of Calvados; he not only enjoyed drinking it, but also found it effective fuel for paraffin lamps and his Zippo lighter.

He soon arranged for the squadron intelligence officer, an excellent artist, to paint a logo on the nose of his Typhoon. It showed a Nazi swastika topped by a burning eagle – the result of a strike by a 60lb rocket in the centre of the swastika. He named it "Excreta Thermo", but the more prudent intelligence officer did not include this wording in case Stapleton crash-landed in enemy territory. In the event, this proved a wise decision.

Stapleton flew his first operation on August 27, when his rocket-firing Typhoons attacked barges on the river Seine. Within days, No 247 started heading eastwards to occupy abandoned German airfields as the Allied armies advanced towards Paris and Brussels. Stapleton and his pilots attacked enemy transports and armour against fierce anti-aircraft fire.

On September 17 the squadron was briefed for "a very important task": the support of the airborne operations at Nijmegen and Arnhem. Stapleton led the initial attack by eight Typhoons against German gun positions threatening the British Second Army's advance along the road to Eindhoven.

Over the next two days Stapleton led more formations against the enemy, but bad weather forced some sorties to be aborted. The squadron then moved to Eindhoven, where the Typhoons landed between the bomb craters.

After a rowdy night, when much champagne was consumed, his Jeep ran out of fuel returning from the officers' bar and he had to jump clear as the following vehicle failed to stop in time. Stapleton hit his head on the kerb and needed eight stitches above his eye.

For the next two months Stapleton led many formations against gun emplacements, road and rail traffic and ferries before the German Army launched its counter-attack in the Ardennes on December 17. For days the weather prevented any flying; but finally it cleared sufficiently for eight Typhoons to carry out an armed reconnaissance sortie on December 23.

Despite still dreadful weather, Stapleton pressed on and attacked a train at low level with rockets; but the flying debris from the exploding steam engine punctured the radiator of his Typhoon and his engine failed. He was fortunate to find an area of open farmland in which to make a forced landing.

He had come down two miles on the wrong side of the battle lines and was taken prisoner. He was taken to Stalag Luft I, and remained a PoW until May 2, when the camp was liberated by the advancing Russian Army.

On January 1 1946, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands awarded Stapleton a Dutch Flying Cross for his part in the operations at Arnhem. A month later he left the RAF, believing that he would not fit in with a peacetime air force.

Stapleton joined BOAC, flying West African routes for three years before returning to South Africa. There he spent six years as a technical representative with Dunlop, then seven years as works engineer with Sprite Caravans. Whilst living in Botswana he escorted tourists on photographic safaris in southern Africa before returning to Britain in 1994.

To many people Stapleton was one of the real "characters" to survive the war. His favourite aircraft was the Spitfire, and when a colleague described it as "beautiful and frail, yet agile, potent and powerful" Stapleton responded: "I always wanted a lady like that."

He was a great supporter of the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and in 2007 one of the Flight's Spitfires carried his personal markings. He was also a regular at many Battle of Britain commemorative events; but his greatest devotion was to the No 603 Squadron Association. With his flamboyant ties, large floppy hat and luxuriant moustache, he was immensely popular at the many events he attended.

A biography, Stapme by David Ross, was published in 2002.

Gerald "Stapme" Stapleton died on April 13. He is survived by his wife, Audrey, a son and his elder brother, Air Vice-Marshal Deryck Stapleton. A second son predeceased him. 

SPITFIRE N3196 AT KILN PIT HILL

Supermarine Spitfire N3196 had an illustrious career that almost outshines the men who flew it!  What follows is a description of its working life from its first flight on 27th November 1939 through its delivery to 41 Squadron on 14^th April 1940, to its final destruction in a crash at Kiln Pit Hill on 25^th April 1943.

It was built at the Supermarine factory at Woolston, Southampton and had its test flight on 27^th November 1939, finally being delivered to 27 Maintenance Unit at RAF Shawbury, Shrewsbury, Shropshire on 2^nd January 1940.  After extensive testing it was delivered to 41 Squadron at RAF Catterick, Yorkshire on 14^th April 1940.

On 26^th April 1940, whilst returning from a patrol, the plane struck a sector light and damaged its undercarriage which in turn caused it to crash land and overturn.  The pilot, Sgt Isaac E Howitt, was unhurt in the incident.  However the aircraft was badly damaged and had to be dismantled and returned to the factory, at Hamble, Hampshire, for repairs on 5^th May 1940.

After repair, on 26^th August 1940, it was sent to 9 Maintenance Unit at RAF Cosford, Shropshire who in turn allocated it 603 Squadron at RAF Hornchurch on 3^rd September 1940 from where it was to take part in the Battle of Britain.  Only four days later it was in the thick of the fray, piloted by Sgt (later Squadron Leader) B G “Stap Me” Stapleton when it was badly shot up by a Messerschmidt Bf109.  He nursed it back over the Channel and crash landed in a ploughed field near Sutton Valence  in Kent.  He achieved a score of 6 kills, 2 shared kills, 8 probables and 2 damaged – several of them in this aircraft.  However, the aircraft was salvaged and returned to the Hamble factory for repairs just three days after the accident.

After the war he wrote the following:

".......During my dive from altitude I spotted a Spitfire at about 6,000' diving vertically, half inverted, towards the ground, it's tail shot away. I then spotted a lone 109 in the same airspace as an RAF pilot descending by parachute. I latched onto the German and pursued him at low-level over the Kent countryside. As I fired short bursts he attempted to shake me off but I could see my tracer striking his aircraft and I closed in. I remember at one stage being concerned that there was a village in my line of fire. He had nowhere to go but down and eventually force-landed in a field. I flew low over the site. The German was soon apprehended, initially by the unarmed cook from the local searchlight battery!"

This relates to the well supported, but unproved, story that he was the one who shot down Leutnant Franz von Werra – the only German POW ever to escape from British custody (in Canada) and make it home.  This was the subject of the Hardy Kruger film “The One That Got Away”.  He was not officially credited with the kill but he was flying this aircraft at the time.

On 8^th April 1941 it was re-issued to 57 Operational Training Unit at RAF Hawarden, Flintshire where it appears to have suffered unknown damage which caused it to be returned to the factory yet again.  In September 1942 the unit moved to RAF Eshott in Northumberland and, in December 1942, it suffered further damage but was quickly repaired and back in action.

On 9^th April 1943, piloted by an Australian, Sgt Theo Gilson Ross, the plane crashed, and was totally destroyed, at Fairley Farm, Kiln Pit Hill, Northumberland; the pilot was killed and is buried in the churchyard of St Mary at Stamfordham in Northumberland.

In a private publication, Alan Storr – a former WW2 Australian airman – wrote the following:

On the 9th April 1943, Spitfire N3196 took off from RAF Ouston to carry out a day flight training. During the flight the aircraft was engaged in a height climb, and was last seen doing aerobatics, Eye witnesses were of the opinion that the Pilot executed aerobatics at no great altitude and finally stalled for reasons unknown. The aircraft crashed into the sea near Fairlie Farm, Shotley Bridge, one and a half miles west of Whittonstall, Northumberland, and the Pilot was killed.”

The report is otherwise accurate, but I have no idea where he got the idea that the plane crashed into the sea!