On 14th August 1944 the crew on this aircraft were undertaking a night cross-country training exercise when the Mosquito flipped onto it's back while flying at 25,000 feet and the control column locked back which caused the aircraft to go into a flat spin. Having lost control the two baled out and the aircraft crashed at about 01.00hrs at Egton. Upon landing both crew received minor injuries and were taken to Whitby Hospital. The aircraft came down in a field between Egton school and church.
Mosquito KB269 appears to have had no Air Ministry Contract so it was possibly built to a Canadian Government contract by D.H. (Canada)
at Downsview, Ontario and it was delivered to the UK in July 1944. After acceptance it was immediatley issued to 139 Squadron at Upwood
from where it was shortly after transferred to 1655 MTU at Warboys. It was written off in the incident detailed above with Cat.E2/FA(Burnt) damage being recorded after the incident detailed above.
Pilot - F/Lt Hugh Colin Kimpton RNZAF (401391), of Palmerston, North Island, New Zealand - Slightly injured.
Navigator - F/O M Wilkins RAF. (Watkins in Chorley's Losses book) - Slightly injured.
The aircraft crashed near where this house has now been built. I contacted Mr and Mrs Clark of Egton in Feb 2004, Mrs Clark has lived here all her life and recalls that this Mosquito
crashed in a field between the Church and the school, a house had been built here in resent years but the crash site should still lay behind this in the field. My thanks to them for this and other information they gave me. The garden of the house was searched by Mr Dick Barton's research group some years ago and nothing aircraft related was found.
Neither airmens service numbers are known.
Hugh Kimpton was born in Palmerston North, New Zealand on 21st November 1918 and served in the RNZAF from 4th June 1940 to 25th December 1945. He
embarked for the UK in January 1941 as a Sgt. On 11th February 1942 the then F/Sgt Kimpton was training with 149 Conversion Flight (149 Squadron's Stirling conversion flight),
when Stirling W7457 he was piloting crashed on landing at Lakenheath when the undercarriage had not locked down properly. One assumes he went on to fly with 149 Squadron.
On 8th August 1944 F/O Kimpton
crashed on take-off at Wyton in Mosquito KB262 when the undercarriage gave way. He is listed at F/O on that date, so
I presume that he was promoted in the next five days, therefore before the Egton incident. All incidents are covered in William Chorley's Bomber Command
Losses book 8. After the Egton incident F/Lt Kimpton was posted way from the MTU course on 27th September 1944 without completing it. He later
returned home to New Zealand after the War, and was still living in 2007. (My thanks to Mr Errol Martin for some of this information.)