On the night of 23rd October 1944 the crew of this Wellington were on a training exercise, a navigation exercise with a number of pilots on boad. It was being flown in cloud when control was lost and the aircraft crashed at high speed and blew up on impact near Elleron Lodge, to the north of Pickering near Keldy. The flight had lasted almost two and a half hours when the crash occured at 23.50hrs. The aircraft was totally destroyed with the crew of five on board being killed. Icing conditions were believed to have been the factor which resulted in control being lost. I believe the unit to which this aircraft was with to be Central Navigation School (CNS), though this appears mis-quoted in many sources, the Form AM1180 states ECNS, this is incorrect, Empire Air Navigation School (EANS) is also quoted, though CNS was renamed ECNS at Shawbury on 28th October 1944, five days after JA305 had crashed.

Wellington JA305 was built to contract 92439/40 by Vickers Armstrongs Ltd at Squires Gate, Blackpool and delivered to the RAF in August 1943 and issued sometime later in 1943 to CNS at Cranage. The aircraft moved with the unit to Shawbury on 11th February 1944. It was destroyed in the above incident with Cat.E2/FA damage being recorded.

Pilot - WO Arthur J Novis RAF (1314740), aged 22, of Uplands, Swansea. Buried Swansea Oystermouth Cemetery, Wales.

(2nd) Pilot - F/O Peter McPhillips RAFVR (139834), aged 29, of London. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.

Pilot - Sgt Philip R Scott RAFVR (1673505), aged 32, of Bradford, Yorkshire. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.

Pilot - F/Sgt David B P J Watson RAFVR (1345463), aged 20, of Edinburgh, Scotland. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.

Navigator - F/Sgt Mervyn H G Lane RAFVR (1587028), aged 21, of Wellington. Buried Wellington, Somerset.

Three of the crew were buried in Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.

Peter McPhillips was granted a commission in the RAF as P/O on probation (emergency) on 20th February 1943 and rose to F/O on probation on 20th August 1943. I was lucky to receive an email from his neice in October 2010 who was able to add additional family history. His parents were originally from Lanarkshire, Scotland before emigrating to Hawaii, USA. He had returned to the UK to enlist into the RAFVR. I thank Ms. Jane Murray for her contact and the information she was able to provide.

The Wellington is believed to have come down within this area shown on this photograph, taken in the 1970's.

The aircraft crashed onto what was once moorland but the area was ploughed in the years after the war and it is now farmland. Parts of the aircraft were discovered in a pond near Keldy Castle until the area was developed in the 1950s.