On 8th January 1945 this aircraft was due to be ferried back to it's main base at Church Lawford from the unit's satellite airfield of Snitterfield, Warwickshire (after possibly being borrowed by 1546 BAFT). The weather in the area of the Midlands was forecast bad, for unknown reasons the pilot was allowed to take off against advise given and then the crew were reported not to have flown a route suggested to their destination. It is also not known why the aircraft was flying so far north of the intended destination. The aircraft flew into heavy snow showers and at 13.25hrs the aircraft crashed onto Urra Moor, to the east of Chop Gate killing the three airmen on board. Icing of the surfaces of the aircraft and engines probably caused control to be lost but the aircraft was probably not flying level at the time of the crash because there is very little of a wreckage trail which flying level and crashing onto a flatish section of moor would have left some sign of this. Had it being flying level and flying only afew feet higher it would have cleared this hill top and being the highest on the North Yorkshire Moors may not have crashed at all. All three of the men on board sadly died at the scene but why there were two pilots and an instructor on board is not known unless they were returning this aircraft and then were to collect two other aircraft. At some point after the crash much of the aircraft was either recovered or burnt on site, there are no signs of either engine at the crash site nor have they known to have been present at the site since the 1960s.
Oxford LW903 was built to contract ACFT/2144 by Percival Aircraft Ltd at Luton and delivered to RAF MU storage in August 1943. After a period in storage it was issed to 18 (P)AFU based at Church Lawford on 1st July 1944. It was written off after the incident detailed above with Cat.E2/FA damage being recorded.
Instructor Pilot - F/O Owen Munro Wovenden Clarson RCAF (J/25795), aged 22, of St Anne de Bellavue, Quebec, Canada. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Flying Instructor - F/O John Donald Stewart Barkell RAF (150443), aged 21, of Daventry, Northamptonshire. Buried Botley Cemetery, Oxford.
Pilot - F/O Norman Geoffrey Riley RCAF (J/26110), aged 24, of Vancouver, Canada. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Two photographs of F/O Clarson and his headstone (Photographs from Mrs Bev. Walkling, cousin of Owen Clarson). He was born on 10th June 1922, the son of Henry Thomas and Dorothea Clarson, of Gardenvale, Province of Quebec, Canada.
Donald Barkell and his gravestone at Botley Cemetery, Oxford. My thanks to Mr Gerry Thompson for the photograph of F/O Barkell almost certainly taken when he attended Daventry Grammer School prior to enlisting into the RAF, his father was also headmaster at the same school. He received his commission to the rank of P/O on probation (emergency) on 26th May 1943 and rose to F/O on probation on 26th November 1943. My thanks to Mr Alan Clark for the photograph of his grave.
F/O Riley's headstone in Harrogate Cemetery, Yorkshire. He was born on 8th July 1920 to John Henry and Emily Jane Riley of Vancouver. He was married to Mary Riley.
Will Lund, John Skinn and myself first visited the crash site in January 2003. Large sections of wing and fuselage skinning were still to be seen at the site. There are signs that a fire had occured at sometime during the aircrafts demise. John and myself have since re-visited the site many times and have located small parts some distance from this site which can only be from this aircraft. A section of undercarriage which was in reasonable condition some years ago had just about disintergrated in 2006. This site is one I have visited the most whilst walking along the Cleveland Way. While other sites in the area continue to show signs that the remaining wreckage is reducing, this site has changed very little in six years. During our last visit in November 2009 everything was pretty much the same as in 2003. Although some of the aluminium skinning sections are very large all wreckage is pretty much non-descript which probably accounts for it remaining on the site.
The burnt area where the aircraft crashed.
Part of a fuel tank.
A number sequence prefixed with the "10" which refers to the Airspeed 10/46, which was the Oxford type. Can anyone say what the "SW35" stamp means please?
I would like to thank Mrs Walkling (a relation of Owen Clarson) for contacting me and for the information she has been able to provide in this account, which has been very interesting.