| Derek |
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When I was a child I can remember being told about a plane crash which happened during the 1940s somewhere on the Northfields in Stamford in which the pilot was killed.
The only information I can find about any plane crash occurred on May 2nd 1944, when a
P-38 Lightning on a test flight from Wittering, came down in Stamford after suffering from engine failure.
The pilot Capt Roy M. Scrutchfield was unhurt in the crash and returned to duty shortly afterwards.
This leaves me a little confused now, because if this was the crash I was told about all those years ago, did the pilot survive or not ?
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| Patrick |
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Derek's memory of this Lightning crash is right. A friend, Geoff Francis, and I were walking back across the fields from Tolethorpe when we saw this aircraft in the south-east corner of the field immediately below Northfields Farmhouse. We walked over and found it guarded by a single US serviceman sitting in a Jeep. The aircraft fuselage and wings looked undamaged but the undercarriage was wrecked.The soldier told us that the Pilot was unhurt. We left him sitting alone with the plane.
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| Derek |
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Thanks Patrick, for the information about the plane crash I was told about during my childhood. After all these years not knowing what really happened to the pilot in the accident, it's great to read your eye witness account about the crash and better still knowing that the pilot escaped unhurt.
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| James Short |
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Hi when researching plane crashes I think you have missed the one that happened on 15/9/1938. Two aircraft took off from Wittering and collided over Stamford. A young woman was killed somewhere in the Lancaster road area of the town. That woman Violet Mary Russell was engaged to my father John William Short who lived nearby on Harcourt Terrace
I only found out about this event after my fathers death some 30 years ago. Such is life as without this tragedy I would probably not exist!
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