Tuesday 26 June 2012

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 14th 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 20th 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 17th 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, 5th class and the British DFC.  Little is known of his service after that except that he was posted to 300 Squadron on 21st 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 25th 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 28th 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!

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