At 10.45hrs on 18th December 1942 the crew of this No.2 Air Gunnery School aircraft set out from Dalcross in Scotland to ferry it to Henlow in Bedfordshire but before taking off the wireless transmitter was found not to be working. Despite this the crew took off and had planned to refuel at Catterick on their way south but whilst over Yorkshire the weather turned poor. As a result of poor visibility Catterick airfield was not located, 10/10th's cloud cover was reported over the North of England on this day and due to the wireless being unservicable a diversion signal could not be passed to the aircraft to go to another airfield where a landing could be safely made. It was thought that after running low on fuel the pilot had tried to land once darkness began to set in with the aircraft possibly suffering engine trouble before the attempted landing which may have been related to the lack of fuel. The pilot's choice of airfield could not have been worse, he spotted Topcliffe's "Q" Site decoy airfield near Sutton Bank at Cold Kirby, no doubt thinking it was a real airfield in the darknedd. He made a attempted forced landing at 12.15hrs. Just before touching down the undercarriage clipped a stone wall and the aircraft overturned on striking the ground near Garbutts Farm killing the pilot and badly injuring his passenger. The aircraft was written off following the crash.
Defiant N3458 was built to contract 751867/38 by Boulton & Paul Ltd at Wolverhampton and was delivered to the RAF in January 1941. After acceptance it was issued to 255 Squadron at Kirton in Lindsey in the same month. The unit moved to Hibaldstow on 15th May 1941. The aircraft transferred to 456 Squadron at Valley on 29th August 1941 and suffered a minor accident at Valley on 3rd September 1941 when an undercarriage leg broke on landing (recorded as Cat.Ac/FA in the unit records). Following this incident it was then repaired on site but was transferred to 256 Squadron at Squires Gate on 5th December 1941. It then suffered minor damage on 11th February 1942 when the undercarriage failed to lower after an air test. Either Cat.A or Cat.Ac/FA damage would have been the damage assessment and again it was repaired on site. The aircraft was probably transferred to MU storage in May 1942 when 256 Squadron ceased operating Defiants. The date it was issued to 2 A.G.S. at Dalcross is not yet known. As a result of the accident at Cold Kirby on 18th December 1942 Cat.E2/FA damage was the damage assessment that saw it struck off charge.
Pilot - F/Sgt Alan Frank Martin RAFVR (932841), aged 21, of Ilford. Buried Manor Park Cemetery, Essex.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner (passenger?) - Sgt George Osmond Pitcher RAF (332458). Injured.
The pilot was buried in a family plot Manor Park Cemetery, East Ham, London. He had a total of 512 hours flying to his name at the time of his death, 280 hours of which were on the Defiant. During a visit to London in March 2007 I was fortunate enough to have been able to visit the cemetery and locate his grave. I would like to thank Ms Jan Briggs, cemetery manager for her help.
The correct identity of Sgt Pitcher may have been a George Osmond Pitcher born in Aston (Birmingham) in early 1902. This would mean he was very old for aircrew in 1942 but his service number (332458) suggests that he was a civilian entrant from after March 1919. My thanks to air historian Alan Clark for this additional information. The eventual release of the casualty file to the National Archives should confirm the identity of the passenger.
Wreckage from the aircraft which is rumours to have included the Merlin engine was said to be present at the site until the 1980's, I have yet locate the crash site. A teacher at Easingwold School in the 1190s is said to have recovered part of this Merlin engine although claimed it to have been from a "Spitfire" crash at Sutton Bank but there were no Spifires that crashed here.