Mosquito DZ421 in the foreground.
On 25th July 1944 the crew of this aircraft were undertaking a cross country training flight
and flying at a height of between twenty and twenty five thousand feet over Yorkshire. Without
warning the starboard undercarriage door suddenly opened, broke off and struck the starboard
tail plane of the aircraft. The aircraft then went out of control and the pilot was able to
escape from the aircraft as it broke up and deploy his parachute, the navigator sadly was not
and was killed. The RAF's crash card, the Form AM1180, states he was killed as the aircraft
broke up. The majority of the aircraft came down on land near Woodhouse Farm, Acklam to the
south west of Malton but where the pilot landed is not yet known but if he baled out from a
height as great as twenty thousand feet this could have been some distance away. Other accounts
relating to this incident quote Westow as a crash location could be refering where he landed or
infact part of the aircraft came to earth, plausable given the height in which the break-up occured.
The crash investigation blamed poor maintainance of the cables which operate the undercarriage
doors as being the contributing factor for the accident occuring.
Pilot - WO Claude E Cook RNZAF (411616), baled out and survived. It is believed he survived the War.
Navigator - Sgt William G Ashley RAFVR (1581756), aged 21, of Small Heath, Birmingham. Buried Yardley Cemetery, Birmingham.
Sgt William Ashley (photo Mr & Mrs J R Smith). My thanks to Mr Smith for contacting me with regard his
brother-in-law, killed in this incident. Without his research into this loss this account would not be
as detailed here.
The pilot Claude Cook was born in Greymouth, New Zealand on 24th June 1923, he enlisted on 10th March 1941 and embarked for
Canada on 17th December 1941 to contunie his training. At the time of this incident at Acklam he had already clocked up 1300 flying hours.
He escaped a further Mosquito crash on 15th August 1944, he and his navigator baled out when control was lost over Madley, Herefordshire.
Both airmen were injured and taken to Madley's station sick quarters before being transferred to the RAF Hospital at Credenhill.
Claude Cook eventually recovered and returned to New Zealand.
Mosquito DZ421 was built to contract ACFT/555 by the De Havilland Aircraft Co Ltd at Hatfield
and was delivered to 139 Squadron at Wyton (in 8 Group PPF) in December 1943. It was transferred
to 627 Squadron at Woodall Spa in April 1944 and then a few week later to 1655 MTU at Warboys.
It was written off in the incident detailed above with Cat.E2/FA Burnt damage being recorded.