Whitley N1486 near Market Weighton.
On the night of 3rd/4th August 1940 the crew of this aircraft were tasked with Ops to Mannheim to attack an oil refinery and took off from Dishforth
at 21.46hrs. On their return to Yorkshire many aircraft found their bases blanketed in fog. Short of fuel the pilot made a wheels-down landing on
farmland two miles East of Market Weighton with no damage to the aircraft being sustained nor any injuries reported. The aircraft was re-fuelled
later in the morning and took off at 12.10hrs, it landed back at Dishforth at 12.35hrs.
Pilot - P/O John Richard Denny RAF (43954), of Abbotsley, St.Neots, Huntingtonshire. Uninjured.
Crew - Names unknown, uninjured.
After the War he was appointed a Member of the Military Division of the Most Excellent
Order of the British Empire (MBE), as of 6th September 1946, for work done while a
prisoner of war. The citation gives us an insight into this work, it reads..
"Flight Lieutenant Denny was captured on Juist Island in November 1940, having been forced
to crash land his aircraft. In October 1941, while in transit from Lubeck to Warburg, he and
a companion cut a hole in the side of the truck in which they were travelling and jumped from
the train as it was leaving the station. Flight Lieutenant Denny followed the railway line and
reached Bremen five days later. He boarded a train going to Amsterdam but, on arrival at
Oldenburg, the truck was put in a siding and he was forced to leave. He hid in a barn but was
discovered by a farmer and handed over to the police. During his imprisonment at Stalag Luft I
and Oflag VIB, Flight Lieutenant Denny was a member of the Escape Committee and engaged in
tunnel digging operations. He also worked on a scheme for escape by man-lifting kites. One was
just completed when the equipment was discovered."
He was appointed to a permanent commission in the RAF as F/Lt on 1st September
1945 (with seniority back-dated to 1st January 1943). He rose to S/Ldr on 1st August 1947 and commanded 15 Squadron from
December 1949 until April 1953. He rose to W/Co on 1st July 1953 and retired from the RAF as W/Co on 19th July 1958.
John Denny was granted a commission in the RAF as P/O on probation on 25th June 1940
(with seniorty backdated to 25th April 1940). P/O Denny was made a PoW on the night of
28/29th November 1940 while flying Whitley P5026 on Ops
to Stettin. Soon after being made a PoW the notification came through that he was to be awarded
the DFC for service with 78 Squadron, probably for completing a Tour with them. Notification
appeared in the London Gazette dated 22nd November 1940 although no citation for this has been
found. He rose to F/O (war subs) on 24th June 1941 (seniority 25th April 1941) and rose to
F/Lt on 24th June 1942 (with seniority again backdated to 25th April 1942).
Whitley N1486 was built to contract 75147/38 by Armstrong Whitworth at Baginton and was delivered to MU storage in February 1940
and later issued to 51 Squadron at Dishforth in May 1940. 78 Squadron moved into Dishforth on 15th July 1940 from Linton-on-Ouse and the
aircraft was transferred to them. On 4th August 1940 it made a landing in a field near Market Weighton on return from Ops to Mannheim in
poor weather but sustained no damage and it was refuelled on site and flown out. It then sustained Cat.R/FB damage in a forced
landing near Scarborough later in the year
and was taken away and repaired in works and then issued to 19 OTU at Kinloss on an unspecified date in 1941 to be used in a training
role. It was written off with Cat.E/FA damage on 14th August 1942 when it crashed in sea off Findhorn during a cross-Country flight with
all on board being lost on this occasion.