The crew of this Wellington took off from Marham airfield in Norfolk at 18.25hrs on 30th April 1940 with the aim of bombing Stavanger airfield. In all 50 aircraft were sent to attack three airfields, the other two being at Fornebu and Aalburg. Thirty five of these aircraft managed to bomb with three aircraft being lost over the target. With regard this specific aircraft, all appears to have gone well on the out-bound leg and whilst over the target. On the return leg this aircraft lost electrical power and with it all the navigational and wireless systems, they flew in formation with another 115 Squadron Wellington (piloted by F/Lt Pringle) and kept together until near the English coast. The other aircraft then successfully homed into their airfield and made a good landing but Wellington R3154 drifted off course northwards. The crew eventually became lost in the darkness, in poor visibility and low cloud navigation became a problem. On flying north their situation was compounded due to a number of other things; the failure of RAF Driffield's beacon to answer signals; having a shortage of recognition cartridges on board the aircraft and setting a course at too low a height. The Wellington continued on and eventually flew into the ground at 03.15hrs north of Lastingham towards the southern edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, the belly of the aircraft would appear to have been torn off and sadly two members of the crew were killed and they were probably those in the very front of the aircraft. The aircraft came to rest some distance from where it first struck the ground, the four survivors received minor injuries and it became apparent that in pitch blackness they could not find the two other members of the crew, the rear gunner and wireless operator received very minor injuries and set out to find help. On their fourth attempt they located the bodies of the two missing airmen who had been thrown out in the impact, at dawn they could see where they were going so found their way down to Rosedale Abbey and later all the crew were taken to Pickering. The survivors were then transported to Dishforth airfield where they remained for three days. The accident documentation states that the crew had planned on remaining in the air until dawn when they would be able to find somewhere safe to land, what it doesn't state it what direction they were heading at the time of the crash. Because I have found the site and a wreckage trail I would appear that they were flying roughly west to east at the time of the crash perhaps taking the aircraft back out towards the coast to try and locate some form of feature that would tell them where they were.
After the incident the pilot, who already had 250 hours flying to his name, said that he thought he was over flat East Anglia when the height at which he was flying would have been adequate. 1000 feet in this area would have been more than ample to avoid striking high ground - as none exists. Because of the failure of the wireless and the poor visibility they became hopelessly lost.
Wellington R3154 was built to contract B3913/39 by Vickers at Weybridge. It was allotted to 115 Squadron on 8th April 1940 and was taken on charge by them at Marham on 15th April 1940 when the unit began to re-equip with Wellington MkIc's. It carried the squadron code "KO-Q" at 115 Squadron. Following the crash on 1st May 1940 on the moorland above Rosedale the damaged aircraft was clearly badly damaged but must have been reasonably intact, it was inspected on site and appears to have been initially assessed as repairable as it was then transported to Brooklands / 4 M.U. It's AM Form 78 states that they received it on 8th May 1940. It was then struck off charge on 27th May 1940 almost certainly after a more detailed damage inspection took place that found the damage was too serious, Cat.W/FB damage being recorded.
The aircraft crashed on moorland on the horizon shown in this photograph.
There are conflicting reports, mainly from contempary sources, as to where the aircraft came down and none really tie the location down to a specific place on the Moors. This is a good example of how a site can be found with a great deal of time being spent trying to find it so I have documented how this progressed here. This was one of my local sites and one that I wanted to tie down to a location for many years. As a result of the lack of precise locating information out there it resulted in much leg-work outside of the grouse nesting and shooting seasons between 2002 and 2018 to track it down. This was in the form of wandering around a massive area of moorland trying to spot something that could be aircraft wreckage on the surface within patches of moor that had had the heather burnt off. The times in the year this can practically be done is a fairly narrow window in good weather so much of this was done in the Winter. Not having a proper idea of where the aircraft crashed this first resulted in the Tiger Moth crash site being located on Spaunton Moor. In 2007 John Skinn and myself then located two small pieces of aluminium on the surface which after some research and inspection contained a series of stamped lettering, such lettering is common on aircraft parts and often proves the site to be the type of aircraft being searched for. Each different type of aircraft had a different prefix to the the series of numbers. There are only two crash sites in this general area that these pieces could come from, the larger of the parts was not from a Spitfire (one crashed in this area in 1942). The photograph shown above was the larger part located and is identical to those found at other Wellington crash sites and was a part located in the area of the main fuselage around the bomb-bay. Whilst not conclusive the aircraft crashed here it does suggest that it was dragged off the Moor and perhaps onto the dis-used railway track bed to be carted away through this area. Over the next few years I then spent numerous trips searching this immediate area for further pieces and these searches yielded just one tiny fragment. This still did not ring true of what I would expect there to be at the site so widened the search area assuming that the team who cleared the site had dragged it off the moor and down to the railway trackbed I began to check a possible area that it could have been dragged from and through in the hope that further fragments would remain on the surface. As it turned out I found nothing more between where the first fragments were found and where it would have crashed. In 2017 I found the crash site proper, a few small pieces remained on the surface, one of which was a piece of typical Wellington geodetic structure. I returned in early 2018 and located what I believe is a wreckage trail consistant with the crash, almost certainly locating where the aircraft first struck, where a front turret fairing and a panel from the bomb bay were in a slight wet depression. On a heading of around 100' a trail runs with small fragments for around a hundred metres. What is striking is that the crashed aircraft must have been visible from the Hutton le Hole to Blakey road and remaining fairly intact after the crash.
The original larger of the pieces found at Thorgill in an area through which I presume the aircraft was dragged to remove it from the moor. I placed a photograph of where I found this piece on an earlier version of this webpage and since then the piece has disappeared, this webpage now contains no photographs of the site to try and protect the remaining bits from the same fate.
The same part on Wellington DV718 which crashed on Great Whernside. Comparing it to that in the upper photograph comparisons can be made. Part of the bomb carriers can be seen in this photograph.
The part above shows the geodetic fragment located at the crash site.
The panel from the bomb bay showing how it was to be fuzed. This was fantastic to find this on the surface some 78 years after the crash. I had planned on an eightieth anniversary trip to the site but due to Covid-19 lockdown being in place this was out of the question sadly.
Another Wellington part number on a cast alloy piece. The "285.." prefix on the number indicates that it was from a Wellington.
I would like to express my thanks to relations of these airmen for contacting me; to Mr Mike Gibbes, Mrs Lesley Syme and Mr Michael Clarke without their contact this account would not be as full.
