During the night of 28th/29th April 1943 the crew of this aircraft were undertaking a night cross-country training exercise in good weather. Having left Catfoss around 22.30hrs the flight took them across the North Yorkshire Moors, at 23.16hrs the aircraft struck the highest section of ground in the area on Urra Moor. Rarely for these losses there was no cloud reported covering the Moors at the time and it was thought the reason for the crash was that they simply were not flying high enough to clear the high ground. Sadly both airmen lost their lives and the aircraft burnt out.

Beaufighter R2152 was built to contract 983771/39 by The Bristol Aeroplane Company Ltd at Filton and delivered to the RAF in November 1940. After RAF acceptance it was issued to 252 Squadron at Chivenor in December 1940 before being transferred to 272 Squadron at the same station on 3rd April 1941 when the unit moved to Chivenor and started to convert to Beaufighter If's from Blenheim IV's. 272 Squadron left Chivenor for overseas duties on 24th May 1941 and their older Beaufighter If's were transferred to other units, R2152 going to 2 (C)OTU at Catfoss where it had a long life before being written off in the incident detailed above where it sustained Cat.E2/FA Burnt damage being recorded following the incident on 28th April 1943. The photograph above shows Beaufighter R2153 in its early life with 252 Squadron, the sister of R2152.

Pilot - F/O Peter Ewart Davison RAFVR (127323), aged 20, of Birkenhead. Buried Thornaby on Tees Cemetery, Yorkshire.

Navigator / Wireless Operator - Sgt Eric Norman Sykes RAFVR (1100677), aged 27, of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. Buried Thornaby on Tees Cemetery, Yorkshire.

The graves of the two crew at Thornaby Cemetery. Peter Davison was made a P/O on probation on 31st July 1942 and later to F/O on probation on 31st January 1943.

I first located the crash site in 2003. Rumour has it that this aircraft first clipped the ground somewhere else and this damaged the aircraft causing it to crash in the location depicted in the photograph above but John Skinn and myself have covered a huge area of Urra Moor searching for the other crash sites and have yet to find a secondary Beaufighter crash site to back these rumours up.

Small peices of the aircraft are still to be found at the crash site, a large number of 20mm canon shells were sadly taken from the site by someone, probably for their scrap value in or around 2008.

A colourful Urra Moor in August 2010 the last time I visited the crash site.

A number of parts at the crash site still show part numbers but as yet have do not know how Beaufighter number sequences work to be able to identify any of them. The peice above shows a clearest part number and a tiny Bristol inspection stamp.