A 58 Squadron Whitley landing at Linton on Ouse.
This 58 Squadron Whitley "O for Orange" took off from Linton on Ouse at 19.00hrs on 20th October 1940 to undertake an operational flight to bomb the Skoda factory in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. The pilot, P/O Brown, was injured by flak over the target area so the second pilot, Sgt Adlam, had taken over for the return leg of the flight. On its return to England the crew became lost and ran short of fuel. The Whitley crashed into the hillside south of Ingleby Greenhow, at Botton Head at 06.12hrs on 21st October 1940 where upon it caught fire. At around the same time a Luftwaffe aircraft of the 1/NJG2 unit was flying an specialist intruder mission over the north of England and it was claimed that the Whitley was shot down by this aircraft; piloted by Hauptmann Karl Hulshoff. If this was correct it was the first known success against a Bomber Command aircraft by a German intruder over the British mainland although Hulshoff claimed the aircraft to have been a Hereford. The Casualty files of the RAF crew do not mention any form of enemy action that resulted in their crash however so I cannot prove the crash was the result of anything more than not flying high enough in the area of high ground. Of the five Whitley crew sadly three died on the moor and one later in hospital and the fifth survived.
The RAF took what they wanted from the aircraft after the crash but after the War a local farmer sledded some of the larger remains away, possibly cashing it in with the scrap man. A number of years later the new tenant farmer at the same farm did the same with more of the aircraft's remains. I contacted the son of this second farmer in 2004 and he was led to believe that Sgt Green survived the actual crash after being thrown from the plane during the crash. Although this prolonged his life only slightly it saved him from being killed in the aircraft on impact. The same farmer also told me that a land slip occurred from above where the aircraft crashed as a result of the crash. The photograph taken at the time (shown below) does seem to agree with this as there seems to be large rocks in the foreground of the photo.
Whitley T4171 was built to contract 38599/39 by Armstrong Whitworth Ltd at Baginton. It was allotted to 6 MU on 19th August 1940 and was delivered to 6 MU on 6th September 1940. The aircraft was then taken on charge by 58 Squadron at Linton on Ouse on 3rd October 1940. The aircraft was a replacement at 58 Squadron for Whitley N1426 which had been transferred to 19 OTU at Kinloss. T4171 sustained Cat.W/FB damage following the crash on 21st October 1940. It was struck off charge on 27th October 1940.
Pilot - F/O Ernest Henry Brown RAF (41550), aged 25. Buried Wandsworth (Streatham) Cemetery, London.
Pilot - Sgt Leonard Frank Percy Adlam RAFVR (745662), aged 25. Buried Farnborough Cemetery, Hampshire.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - Sgt Marcel Cuthbert Caryll-Tilkin RAFVR (902238), aged 29. Buried Thornaby on Tees Cemetery, Yorkshire (now Cleveland).
Observer - Sgt Cyril Sidney Garrick Green RAFVR (747715), aged 31. Buried Bengeworth Cemetery, Evesham, Worcestershire. Died on 23rd October 1940 in Stockton and Thornaby Hospital of internal injuries.
Rear Gunner - Sgt Robert Ernest Langfield RAF (614301), aged 23. Injured.
Leonard Adlam was born on 26th July 1915 at Gillingham, Kent and was the son of Frank and Ellen (nee Driskell) Adlam. He married Phyllis Elsie Yeoman in 1934. His wife was living alone at Worthing, Sussex in the 1939 Register
His address on probate is given as Reading, Berkshire. His wife remarried in 1951. Why he was buried at Farnborough is unclear. My thanks to author Mr Chris Yeoman for these photographs and copyright remains with him. He has kindly allowed their
reproduction on this webpage and asks that if anyone would like to use them elsewhere could they ask his permission first and he can be contacted through using my
email link and I will forward any emails to him. He has also done a superb documentation of this accident with details at "www.fightinghigh.com".
Marcel Cuthbert Caryll-Tilkin (or Caryll de Tilkin, the correct version of his name remains uncertain) was born on 3rd October 1911 at Wimbledon, London. Research into his family has proved interesting, the CWGC online databse gives little clues as to his
parents other than he was the son of Ivan and Maud Caryll (his father was also known as Felix Tilkin). His father, Ivan Marie Henri Tilkin was a Belgian composer, conductor of operattas and Edwardian musical comedies
and had a hand in forty works in his life. He was better known by his pen name of Ivan Caryll. Ivan was born in Belgium but moved to London in 1882 and became one of the most prominent London stage
composers of the early 20th Century. His first marriage was to Geraldine Ulmar, a Gilbert and Sullivan singer and actress. He later married Marcel's mother Maud Hill before moving to New York in 1911
and composed a number of Broadway musicals where he died in 1921. Marcel's sister Primrose Caryll became an actress but she must have been to Ivan's first wife as she was acting in New York around the
time of her father's death. Ivan's address in his probate record was given as The Chateau de Tour la Ville St.Martin aux Chartrains, Calvados, France. Googling the property it looks to be a grand house.
Sgt Caryll-Tilkin had survived a ditching of Whitley N1427 on 3rd September 1940 when he and his then crew ran out of fuel on return from Ops to Genova. The crew of four came ashore at Margate, Kent in the aircraft's dinghy.
Cyril Green was born on 13th September 1909 at Evesham, Worcestershire and was the son of Arthur Sidney and Edith Alice A (nee Garrick) Green. As a child he attended Prince Henry's Grammar School
and then became a dental mechanic in Worcester before becoming an insurance agent. He married Edna Bell Brearley in 1933 at Evesham. In the 1939 register he is listed as an insurance agent, living at
Evesham and being a member of the RAFVR. He may have left a baby daughter. He was buried at Bengeworth Cemetery, Evesham, Worcestershire. His death was registered in the Durham South Eastern district of Durham confirming that he was
alive when left the crash site. I thank Peter Stewart for contacting me and supplying the photograph of his gravestone.
Ernest Brown was the son of Ernest and Beatrice (nee Stait) Brown and was born on 3rd April 1915 at Streatham, London. By the time the 1921 Census was compiled his father had died. The date Ernest received a
commission in the RAF is not yet known but he rose to F/O on 3rd September 1940 and usually at this stage in the War this was in the region of a year after being made P/O on probation. I credit "Julia&keld" with
the photograph of Ernest Brown's gravestone in Streatham Cemetery, London.
The crash site is in the centre of both of these photographs, the top one is taken from the west of the site and the bottom one is taken from the north. Both were taken before the woodland was felled in 2012.
A photograph of Whitley T4171 taken at the time of crash and first published in "White Rose Base" book by Brian Rapier. Rapier's "Warplanes Return 1" also states that an engine was buried at the site, it is not clear whether it is still there. The same position in 2003 when I first visited the crash site.
I visited the crash site for the first time in early 2003. Small remains were still to be found above the tree line and marks on rocks appear to have been created by the Whitley running across it (the photograph above shows these marks running bottom to top of the rock). Pine trees were planted just under the crash site after the war and some larger pieces were found in these trees still baring dark green paint. The trees below the crash site were felled in 2011 and I searched the ground after this work for any sign of the aircraft, nothing was found in what was the trees.
Some of the wreckage at the crash site.
Two Armstrong Whitworth stamped part, possibly part of a window/glazed section shown above.
A .303 bullet case found at the crash site in 2010 dated 1937.
A photo of further wreckage in a gully taken in the 1970s, this are later part of the woodland area below the main site. My thanks to Mr Graham Sharpe for this photograph.
This part of the bomb rack was recovered from the crash site in the 1970s by Nick Roberts and, via myself, was donated to The Whitley Project.
Robert Langfield was born on 19th March 1917 at Balby, Doncaster, Yorkshire and was the son of and Mary (nee Barker) Langfield. His father died when he was young and was dead prior to the 1921 census being made.
He married to Veronica M Maud in early 1940 in York and died in Doncaster in January 1997. I thank his grand-daughter for contacting me in November 2010.
