The evening of 15th Febuary 1944 saw 891 aircraft set out to bomb Berlin, this was to be the largest non-1000 bomber raid of the War and Berlin was covered in cloud for most of the night however extensive damage was caused throughout the city. The raid signified the end of the Battle of Berlin although another raid was carried out a number of weeks later. This particular 640 Squadron aircraft took off from Leconfield at 17.47hrs and all would appear to have gone well for the crew out-bound and over the target. On the flight home poor weather was effecting flying over the Yorkshire Coast and this aircraft drifted off course and ended up near Whitby. Low on fuel, after making a number of radio calls and circling for a short while, at 01.30hrs the pilot put the aircraft down on moorland near the east coast village of Ravenscar. Before the aircraft could come to a stop however it over ran over the edge of steep drop above what was then Dickinson's Cottage (now Stoupe Brow Farm). It fell over the edge and disintergrated across the fields below sadly resulting in all seven on board being killed. Parts of the aircraft narrowly missed the house with an engine coming to rest on the railway line beyond.
The initial reporting of this incident into the local No.6 Group Flying Control and their log book was probably similar to other fatal accidents at that time and a lack of immediate and direct information being known.
Halifax LW585 was built to contract ACFT/1808/C4/C by English Electric Co.Ltd. at Samlesbury and was delivered directly to 640 Squadron at Leconfield as new on 9th February 1944. Following the crash at Ravenscar on 16th February 1944 an assessment of the wreckage saw Cat.E2/FB damage recorded, although the aircraft's AM Form 78 appears to state "Cat.B Prov". Given the state of the wreckage as seen in a photograph sourced and published by author Bill Norman, Cat.B does seem to be an error. It was struck off charge on 25th February 1944 and without any further damage assessment being noted on the AM Form 78. It had clocked up just 5.40 hours total flying time from new.
Pilot - F/O Hugh Alastair Yuille Barkley RAFVR (131052), aged 22, of Weybridge, Surrey. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Flight Engineer - Sgt Alfred Elkington RAFVR (1166810), aged 33, of Leicester. Buried Leicester Saffron Hill Cemetery.
Navigator - Sgt William Neville Jackson RAFVR (1577169), aged 22, of Bearwood, Smethwick. Buried Smethwick Uplands Cemetery, Staffordshire.
Bomb Aimer - F/O Alexander Lindsay Sommerville RCAF (J/23585), aged 22, of Ghost Pine Creek, Alberta, Canada. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - F/Sgt James Howie Smart RAFVR (984868), aged 22, of Dundee. Buried Balgay Cemetery, Dundee.
Mid Upper Gunner - Sgt Derek Murray Arthur Brown RAFVR (1867211), aged 19, of Dunstable. Buried Dunstable Cemetery, Bedfordshire.
Rear Gunner - Sgt Thomas Graham Leitch RAFVR (1090739), aged 22, of Lancaster. Buried Scotforth Cemetery, Lancaster.
All members of this crew had served with 466 Squadron and were posted in during August 1943. 466 Squadron converted to Halifaxes in October 1943 and all appear to have been posted out after this occurred. On 25th November 1943 F/O Barkley was the pilot of 466 Squadron Halifax HX237 which was taking off for a training flight from Leconfield, the aircraft swung on take-off and stopped with it's undercarriage collapsed. Whilst no injuries were reported this aircraft was the first Halifax MkIII to be written off by Bomber Command which had flown a total of 26.10 hours.
F/O Hugh Barkley (photograph via Bill Norman) and his gravetone at Harrogate. Also shown on the right is the Memorial Board for St.Peters School, in Surrey. This school closed in the 1980s and the board is now on display in Seaford Museum (my thanks to Mr Kevin Gordon for this photograph and for the information he has been able to provide me). Hugh Barkley later studied at Cambridge University where he graduated as a Bacheolor of Arts. He was granted a commission to the rank of P/O on probation (emergency) on 9th October 1942 and rose to F/O on probation (war substantive) on 9th April 1943.
Thomas Leitch was educated at George Heriot's School, Edinburgh and at Victora Park School, Manchester. Prior to enlisting into the RAFVR he worked for a chartered accountant in Lancaster and was a member of the Home Guard. I credit John Gedge with the gravestone photograph.
Alexander Sommerville's grave in Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery. He was born on 5th May 1921 in Ghost Pine Creek, Alberta, Canada and was the son of George Day Sommerville and Mary Eliza (nee Young) Sommerville. His father was born in Glasgow, Scotland and his mother had moved to Canada from Iowa, USA. He was from a large farming family, being one of at least nine siblings with the two of his eldest most brothers also enlisting for RCAF service. After leaving school in 1936 he began working in farming in Ghost Pine Creek and was still working in the same area when he enlisted for RCAF service in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on 28th April 1942. After training in Canada as a bomb aimer he received a commission to the rank of P/O and also his Air Bomber's Badge on 5th February 1943. He left Canada for service in the UK in March 1943. In the UK he trained at 30 OTU before what appears to have been a brief posting to 166 Squadron in late July 1943 and then on to 466 Squadron in August 1943. He was also promoted to F/O in August 1943 and in September 1943 he was posted to 1658 HCU to convert to flying in the Halifax type, he then returned to 466 Squadron when the course was complete. He was finally posted to 640 Squadron on 17th January 1944.
I visited the area where the aircraft struck the moor in April 2003 but found no wreckage on this occasion. The fields between the open moorland and the farmhouse are private land. In September 2003 a massive moorland fire burnt off all the heather on this moor. In November 2003 John Skinn, Ben Wedgewood and I visited the area again, searching the moor was then very easy. We found two pieces of aircraft on the moor and two pieces of perspex at the moor's "cliff" edge. If there was anything else on the moor we would have found it. Since creating this webpage I have received a collection of research from Eric Barton on flying accidents in Yorkshire. He, Ken Reast and Albert Pritchard sought permission from the landowner (believed to have been in 2008) and located fragments of the aircraft in the field to confirm the location.
The aircraft crashed through the fields at the top of the cliff and then fell over the edge.
A full account of the accident to LW585 can be found in Bill Norman's book - "No.640 (Halifax) Squadron, RAF Leconfield" published by Compaid Graphics. The book shows a photograph of the crew and of the crash site taken in 1944.