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| Ancestor Gateway Forum - STAMFORD MEMORIES GATEWAY (Lincolnshire England) used as PRIDE and PREJUDICE FILM SET | New Topic | Search |
| Derek |
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On the 24th of April 1942, a RAF Hawker Typhoon, Serial Number R7654, crashed near Great Casterton, Stamford. Its pilot P/O Neville Neil Allen, of Unit Number 266 (Rhodesia) Squadron, sadly lost his life in the crash. The aircraft reportedly flew out of a cloud and plunged into the ground killing the young 21 year old pilot. Two years prior to the tragedy in 1940, P/O Allen at just 18 years of age became a Rhodesian diving champion. The young pilots grave can be found in All Saints Churchyard Wittering. |
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| Rebecca |
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I remember the night in 1963 when a Victor B. 2. crashed at Barnack after taking off from RAF Wittering. The family and I were watching television when the news on the BBC began, and it reported that a plane had crashed shortly after take off from an airbase near Stamford. We lived on the Northfields estate at the time, and getting up to look out of the window, we could see as we looked out across the rooftops to where Blackstones factory stood, the night sky lit up in a red-orange colour. The Co-pilot in the plane survived the the crash but only because he was ordered by the pilot to eject. The other five members from the crew of six were sadly all killed in the accident. |
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| Dave Leishman |
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I too remember vividly the night of the Victor incident. It was the evening of Wednesday 20th March 1963. I was out walking towards Ryhall. I had just passed the Belmesthorpe turn and was on the slope going up towards Coppice Rd when the entire sky lit up quite brightly. As I turned to see what might be going on, the sound wave arrived, this was an almighty bang. I knew it was something very bad but had to wait till next day to find out the sad news. I was 20 yrs old at that time. Regards. David. |
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| 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 occured on May 2nd 1944, when a P-38 Lightning on a test flight from Wittering, came down in Stamford after suffering engine failure. The Pilot Capt Roy M Scrutchfield, thankfully escaped unhurt in the accident 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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| MikeLaughton |
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Perhaps the worst plane crash to happen in Stamford occurred before the war - in 1938 - when a training aircraft from RAF Wittering hit a house in New Cross Road before crashing into the garden. The most tragic aspect of this crash was that a young woman, who was in the house at the time, ran into the garden and was killed. Ironically, if she had stayed in the house she would have survived. A full report of the crash can be seen in the Stamford Mercury archives for 1938. It was a front page story at the time. Perhaps this is the crash in the Northfields area you refer to. |
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| MikeLaughton |
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Perhaps the worst plane crash to happen in Stamford occurred before the war - in 1938 - when a training aircraft from RAF Wittering hit a house in New Cross Road before crashing into the garden. The most tragic aspect of this crash was that a young woman, who was in the house at the time, ran into the garden and was killed. Ironically, if she had stayed in the house she would have survived. A full report of the crash can be seen in the Stamford Mercury archives for 1938. It was a front page story at the time. Perhaps this is the crash in the Northfields area you refer to. |
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| Mike Laughton |
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Further to my earlier post. I believe the New Cross Road plane crash occurred in October 1938. The young woman who died was 22-year-old Violet Mary Russell. The crash happened when two planes collided in mid-air over the town. A Magister L8263 collided with a Gauntlet K7840. It was the Gauntlet from RAF Wittering that hit the house and killed Miss Russell. Both pilots managed to bail out and survive the crash. The immediate pre-war years appear to have been unbelievably bad for air crashes. In 1938 alone there were 129 crashes in the UK resulting in 234 fatalities. Most of the fatalities were trainee pilots but there were also many civilian victims who were killed when planes crashed into houses. Incredibly the peacetime death-toll among pilots was almost as high as during the war. How we could have used those pilots who were killed in 1938 during the Battle of Britain. |
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| Kevin |
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As little boy I lived in New Cross Road and was always told that the crash that killed Mary Russell was in Gloucester Road not New Cross Road?? Apparently my aunt Billie Martin knew Mary well, (anyone remember Billie dressed in her police uniform doing point duty at the bottom of High Street?) A piston engined Provost crashed in Green Lane in around 1952. I was at Fane Infants and remember being taken down Green Lane after school to be shown a crumpled wreck a few hundred yards behind the school on the right. Didn't a Valiant from Wittering also go down at Barnack in the mid/late 1950's, attempting a landing and clipping a house in Barnack on the way down? |
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| Derek |
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Hi Mike, No, this was definitely not the Lancaster Road incident in which that poor young woman lost her life. My grandmother who lived in the Essex Road area would say that it was somewhere over the top fields. The top fields to people living around that part of the town at the time was anywhere above Worcester Crescent, which meant somewhere between where Elizabeth Road is now and Tolethorpe. If I had to guess at a possible crash site I would say that it was somewhere just beyond the Churchill Road / Emmanuel Road area of the town. |
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| Derek |
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Hello Kevin, Yes, a Vickers Valient of 138 Squadron did come down on the 29th July 1955, killing all four crew members. The plane could be seen bellowing out smoke as it flew towards Barnack village. Just before the crash a police-constable said he saw the aircraft banking at an angle of 45 degrees and very low. As the plane came towards Mill Farm, Pilsgate the wing tip almost touched the ground. A shopkeeper said he saw the doomed aircraft hit an electric pylon and explode about 200 yards from his house. The main part of the wreckage ended up in an old disused stone quarry known as the "Hills and Holes" but many other parts were scattered all over. An engine landed in the garden of a music teacher on the edge of the village. Other larger pieces landed in a field about 30 yards from where an 82 year old woman and her daughter-in-law were having a meal. The four crew members who all died in the crash were, Pilot Squadron Leader E. R. Chalk; second pilot and engineer officer, Flight Lieutenant A. G. Allen; the navigator, Flying Officer T. S. Corkin and the signaller, Flying Officer A. R. Lyons. Flying Officer Lyons baled out but his parachute failed to deploy. The four members are all buried side by side in Wittering churchyard. |
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| Derek |
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On July the 8th 1944, in the county of Rutland, a tragic event took place which was to destroy the lives and futures of many young men. It was a late summer's evening at around 9.30pm when thirty-three aircraft of the U.S. 309th Squadron took to the skies from Spanhoe Airfield. Aboard the aircraft were 369 Polish paratroopers their destination a drop zone at R.A.F. Wittering. In the sky above and close to the tiny village of Tinwell, two of the planes touched wings and became locked together sending them both spiraling out of control and crashing in the meadows beside the river Welland. Wreckage from the two aircraft was scattered everywhere along with the bodies of the 34 brave men who perished in the accident. There was one happy story to emerge from the tragedy, and that was that one man had stared death in the face and survived. American, Corporal Thomas Chambers stood in the doorway of his doomed aircraft and decided the only option open to him was to trust to luck and jump. Luckily good luck came calling for him that evening and he landed in a soft muddy bank. Many of the paratroopers had also tried to jump when it was far too late and their parachutes had failed to open. The list of all the men killed hangs in the church at Tinwell. |
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| Peter |
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An old girlfriend of mine in the early 70's told me that a plane crashed beside Racecourse Road and parts of it were buried around an old barn a few yards past the gated corner that leads down to RAF Wittering,s emergency gate. Back in those days the road was driveable down to that exit and was a local lover's lane. In the day time you could watch the Harriers practising their vertical hovering and take off and landings. |
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| John Tyers |
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I remember the terrible accident Derek described. Our neighbour Stan Lipscomb was one of the volunteer Stamford NFS men who upsettingly had to go out and help retrieve the bodies, Strangely enough I saw the crash described in great detail on an American website and they named two local lads cycling nearby who sped to get help; they were the late Peter Middleton and John Glitheroe. |
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| John Tyers |
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I remember the terrible accident Derek described. Our neighbour Stan Lipscomb was one of the volunteer Stamford NFS men who upsettingly had to go out and help retrieve the bodies, Strangely enough I saw the crash described in great detail on an American website and they named two local lads cycling nearby who sped to get help; they were the late Peter Middleton and John Glitheroe. |
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| Richard |
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I seem to recall a book my uncle once had which said that the planes came down on the Ketton side of Tinwell by the river Welland. Does anyone remember how many Americans were actually killed in the accident ? It was definitely fewer than those on the Polish side. I think the Americans were taken to Cambridge for Burial and the Poles to the Polish cemetery at Newark. |
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| James Short |
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To John Tyers Are you the son of Ernie Tyers who used to work at Gibsons Iron Foundry Star Lane. If so my dad Jack Short was also working there along with Stan Lipscombe, Colin Mee and Albert? Exton. The girl that was killed in the 1938 plane crash was Mary Russell, she was engaged to my father Jack Short. John Middleton was in St Johns Ambulance Brigade with my dad who was eventually promoted to Area Superintendent. John was to go on to head the ambulance service in Ryhall Road. I think you lived on Masterton Road near one of Stamfords characters George Steele |
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| John Tyers |
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Sorry James. My namesake roots are in Uppingham not Stamford. I class myself as more of a Rutlander than a Stamfordian. We came to the town when I was three and my dad got a job at Blackos until the start of the war when he was back in uniform. My wife is a genuine local and I have oft told her "you have to be at least three hundred years old before you can call yourself a Stamfordian!" Among the names you mention, Stan Lipscombe as I have said was our next door neighbour in Belton Street and I knew Colin Mee at school. |
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| Derek |
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At 20.50 hours on Saturday 2nd September 1944 a Halifax Mark 11 crashed at Little Casterton one and a half miles N.N.E of Stamford. The aircraft based at R.A.F Lindholme in South Yorkshire, was on a training cross country flight when the accident happened. All eight crew members aboard the aircraft died in the crash. At the court of inquiry into the accident it was considered that because there was no evidence to show any mechanical failure to the aircraft it was in all probability due to bad weather and the plane had iced up after flying into cloud. It is known that severe icing conditions existed in the area at the time. With the pilot unable to control the plane it could also explain why the aircraft descended at an excessive speed causing partial disintegration immediately before it crashed. Parts of the aircraft were found a considerable distance from the main wreckage which caught fire on impact. A search was made over a wide area for the two port engines but they could not be found. These are the names of the eight crew members who lost their lives in the accident. Pilot: P/O Herbert Garthwaite. Aged 20. Nav: Sgt Ernest Clifford Alsop. Aged 23. Nav (Screened): P/O Douglas John Black. Aged 24. W/Op/Air/Gnr: Fl/Sgt Stanley George Jacobs. Aged 20. Air/Bmr: Fl/Sgt Hugh Andrew Bodin. Aged 23. Fl/Eng: Sgt Douglas Stanley Thompson. Aged 19. Air/Gnr: Sgt William Campbell. Aged 38. Air/Gnr: Sgt Ambrose Trimby. Aged 32. |
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| Derek |
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These are the names of the five crew members who lost their lives in the Victor Bomber crash at Barnack in 1963. Flight Lieutenant Alexander Douglas Gailbraith, aged 29, Pilot. Flight Lieutenant Edward Joseph Vernon, aged 32, Navigator Radar. Flight Lieutenant James Churchill, aged 31, Navigator Plotter. Flying Officer Terence Ian Sandford, aged 23, Air Electronics Officer. Master Navigator Albert Stringer, aged 39, Exercise Umpire on loan from 139 Squadron. The captain had ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft but the rear crew members were unable to do so because of the high G forces as the aircraft was spinning. The co-pilot Flight Lieutenant Brendan James Jackson (27) did manage to eject and apart from suffering a compression fracture was otherwise unharmed. He was a qualified interpreter, speaking fluent German and French and with a BA degree in modern Japanese. He later became Sir Brendan James Jackson and rose through the ranks to Air Chief Marshal. |
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| Derek |
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I think the aircraft which Peter's girlfriend was talking about was perhaps the Harrier which came down at Wittering on the 1st May 1972. Control of the plane was lost by the pilot during transition from hover to forward flight and it crashed. The pilot, Flying Officer C. J. E. Adams ejected safely but the plane itself was damaged beyond repair. Another Harrier crash at Wittering was in 2002. The aircraft a Navy training Sea Harrier T8, was attempting a normal take-off, not the Harrier's trademark vertical take-off when the accident happened on the base's "short take-off and landing strip". The two pilots ejected from the stricken aircraft but one pilot was killed while the other suffered minor injuries. |
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| Derek |
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On Thursday November 3rd 1938 two Hawker Demons belonging to No. 23 (Fighter) Squadron based at RAF Wittering collided in the air over Uffington near Stamford. The pilot of one of the two seater aircraft Sargeant Jack Arnold Bullard bailed out escaping injury but the other crew member in the plane A/C I Harold Roy Lee was killed. The pilot and sole occupant in the other aircraft Pilot Officer Arthur Edward (Slogger) Slocombe also bailed out escaping injury. On Monday 31st January 1938 a Audax spun on approach to a forced landing at Barnack near Wittering. Acting Pilot Officer Trevor Kearsley Goss Dudley aged 20, was killed in the crash. The other crew member Acting Pilot Officer Peter Robert Burton-Gyles was injured. |
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| Derek |
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On Thursday 20th July 1939, a group of Blenheim Bombers from 23 Squadron took off from their base at RAF Wittering. Aboard each aircraft was the pilot and one cadet from Oundle School who were being taken up as part of their training to become "air-minded". During the flight two of the aircraft collided near Stamford, after coming out of a bank of cloud and one began dropping swiftly to earth. During its fall the pilot of the stricken aircraft Sergeant Jack Arnold Bullard, pushed the cadet who was with him out of the plane. The young boy had just enough time to deploy his parachute and land safely away from any danger. Sadly, as a result of delaying his escape helping the 17 year old to get clear first, Sergeant Bullard who only a few months earlier had survived the collision between two planes over Uffington near Stamford, bailed out too late and was killed instantly. The other plane involved in the collision piloted by P/O Alvin Thomas Williams, landed safely back at base. P/O Williams lost his life 11 months later in the North Sea aboard the aircraftcarrier H M S Glorious when it was sunk by two German battleships. |
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| Dan Entwisle |
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The pilot killed was Lt Cdr Martin "Jack"London. A legendary Harrier pilot. I was lucky enough to meet him not long before the Wittering crash. |
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| Derek |
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On Wednesday 28th January 1953, a Balliol from Number 7 Flying Training School, crashed in a ploughed field at Borderville Farm on the outskirts of Stamford killing the pilot. At the controls of the plane was Acting Pilot Officer Michael, Charles, Cameron, Claremont, Constantine, DeCourcy, grandson to Baron Kingsdale and heir to the barony. DeCourcy had been performing low aerobatics over Borderville when the accident happened. The aircraft struck the ground ending up on its nose with the tail and engine having broken off completely. Building workers on the New Drift Estate rushed to the scene but nothing could be done for the young pilot. Married for less than 2 years, DeCourcy was just 22 years of age. |
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| Derek |
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On Monday 11th November 1918, The Armistice - an agreement to stop fighting - was signed between France, Britain and Germany bringing four years of fighting in the First World War to an end. At Wittering, Armistice Day was celebrated in style. Some pilots having over-indulged in their celebrations ignored the the advice of those more sober and took to the air. Tragically eight pilots were killed in totally unnecessary flying accidents. On Wednesday 19th December 1917, an American became the first student pilot to lose his life in a flying accident. On his first solo flight one of his wings was seen to break off while at 3,500 feet. Other American pilots to meet their deaths while flying at Stamford included Second Lieutenant C. I. Smuts nephew of the famous general who died on the 23rd April 1918 and Lieutenant Harry Goosey who was killed on 8th August 1918. In the summer of 1918, at Stamford Airfield the pilot of an RE8, a British two-seat biplane reconnaissance and bomber aircraft, pulled out of his dive too sharpley causing the top wing extensions to fold up. The aircraft came down and crashed among the deer in Burghley Park, but fortunately the pilot was only slightly injured. |
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| Vera |
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When i was a young girl growing up in Empingham, i remember some of the older villagers talking about a plane which crashed somewhere close to the village during the war. I've just recently done some research into this and found that on the night of Sunday September 13th 1942, a Wellington Bomber R1459 of 97 Squadron, took off from it's base at RAF North Luffenham in Rutland. Shortly after take off the aircraft was unable to maintain height, forcing it's pilot New Zealand born John Leslie Munro to 'belly land' the plane and its bomb load near Empingham just minutes later. The crew escaped uninjured but the aircraft was completely destroyed when it's payload detonated. Munro took part in the Dambuster raids being the second plane to take off. He survived the war and died in 2015 aged 96. |
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| Derek |
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On Wednesday the 11th of September 1991, a Hurricane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flown by Squadron Leader Al Martin suffered engine failure close to Wittering. In attempting a forced landing the pilot could not quite make the runway and crashed into the approach lights; the aircraft subsequently burned out. Squadron Leader Martin escaped with a broken ankle and minor burns. In April 2003, a Harrier T10 suffered a major engine failure and crashed on the main runway at Wittering. Fortunately Number 20 (R) Squadrons Commanding Officer, Wing Commander Ian Cameron, and his student, Flight Lieutenant Ben Sargent both survived the crash unscathed. |
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| Brian Gooch |
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Sorry to contradict but the aircraft was the 1st of our V Bombers The Valiant. It was the first Valiant to be found with cronic fatigue problems and 1n 1964 the remaining fleet were all scrapped. |
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