Whitley T4136 near Ebberston, Scarborough.

On 26th October 1940 the crew of this 102 Squadron Whitley were tasked with an operational flight to the Szczecin (Stettin) area of Germany occupied Poland, to bomb the Hydrierwerke Pölitz AG synthetic oil manufacturing plant near the mouth of the River Oder. This target was one bombed frequently throughout the War as it was of significant military importance. The aircraft left Tholthorpe landing ground in Yorkshire at 17.27hrs, not its home base of Linton on Ouse as could be presumed, it crossed the North Sea but as it passed over the Cuxhaven area of north-eastern Germany the ground defences opened up on the Whitley. The Whitley is believed to have sustained flak damaged which resulted in one of the engines becoming unservicable. Continuing in the flight to Stettin from here would have been risky with only one good engine and although oil pressure and the temperature on the faultering engine were normal the crew turned the aircraft around and made for home. They would have struggled back across the North Sea on the one good engine but on arrival over Northern England they found the weather had turned. After descending to 1000 feet believing they were over Linton on Ouse they were unable to locate the airfield. Descending lower would have been foolish, they would be aware of the close proximity of the North Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Wolds and that going below 1000 feet could have meant a crash, not only that it was also a court marshal offence to fly this low to work out ones position. The pilot turned the aircraft around and made for the coast whilst climbing to 6000 feet to perhaps prepare to bale out. As the reached 6000 feet the one good engine began to splutter. The order to bale out was given and all the crew survived the jump. The navigator was reported to have landed close to a search light site at Harwood Dale, so presumably the aircraft had circled over the Scarboorough area when the order to bale out was given. Other crew members landed at Scalby and Hackness and further in land at Allerston, where it is assumed the pilot landed with this village being closest to the crash site and assuming he was last to leave. The aircraft crashed into a small field just south of Ebberston at 23.48hrs with the aircraft exploding on impact. Locals recall a wing overhanging the Scarborough to Pickering railway line which was very close to the crash site.

What was not recorded in official documents is whether the crew jettisoned their bomb load prior to arriving back over North Yorkshire. Given the destruction recalled at the crash site it seems likely that at least one exploding bomb had caused the aircraft to disintergrate on crashing. The usual events would then have occurred; the site would have been guarded and anything on the surface would have been cleared away by the RAF. With there being not casualties it was probable that very little was dug up from the ground and the field was simply levelled.

Following this incident the pilot / captain of the aircraft was relieved of his duties of captaining bomber aircraft for a period after the loss; one presumes that his superiors thought he should have been able to land the aircraft without having to totally destroy it in the manner described above.

In August 2009 a twist to this incident occurred when, during a licenced dig at the crash site to recover parts for the Whitley Project's rebuild project, a 500lb bomb was found. This suggests that the crew had known that bombs were hung-up and would not be too inclined to try and land their aircraft incase this bomb/bombs fell out during so. Although purely conjecture it is possible that the damaged engine may have resulted in the aircraft loosing it's hydraulics, thus preventing the bomb doors opening. If so this would explain why the bomb could not be released or jettisoned over the Sea as was normal and why the crew did not want to belly land a fully bombed Whitley. Sadly the official report makes no mention of this and had it done so then it is doubtful that an MoD licence to dig the site would have been granted. The events of the 2009 dig are recorded below. I also find it unfortunate that the pilot was held to blame for not landing the aircraft now this is known.

Whitley T4136 was built to contract 38599/39 by Armstrong Whitworth at Baginton and was awaiting collection on 3rd August 1940, it was delivered directly to 102 Squadron at Driffield soon after as a replacement for Whitley N1475 which had been with 102 Squadron since January 1940 but had now been transferred to 7 BGS. T4136 moved with the unit to Leeming on 25th August 1940 then on to Prestwick on 1st September 1940 before arriving at Linton on 10th October 1940. It was written off in the incident at Ebberston with Cat.W/Burnt damage being recorded.

Pilot - P/O Jack Simon Gustave Crawford RAF (42197), aged 19, of Harrow, Middlesex.

Second Pilot - P/O Edward Read Osborn RAF (43644), aged 21, of Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.

Observer - Sgt Walter "Wally" Livesey RAF (524173), of Manchester.

Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - Sgt George E West RAF (620494), aged 24, of Gipsyville, Hull, Yorkshire.

Air Gunner - Sgt R Adams RAF.

Edward Read Osborn (pictured above) was the son of Samuel and Mabel Osborn of Dunedin, New Zealand. Edward was the youngest of five children. He was among the first New Zealand pilots called into the war and they sailed to Britain on the “Akaroa” leaving Lyttleton, Christchurch in March 1940. He was granted a short service commission in the RAF as P/O on 9th May 1940 and placed on the active service list for five years. He was posted to 102 Squadron on 2nd August 1940. Just over a month after the Ebberston incident, on 28th November 1940, P/O Osborn, Sgt Livesey and Sgt West were part of a crew flying Whitley P5077 "DY-B", also of 102 Squadron. The aircraft left Topcliffe never to be seen again, probably crashing into the sea on Ops to Le Havre, France. The crew of five in the aircraft at the time are listed on the Runnymede Memorial. No trace was ever found of aircraft or crew.

Sgt West pictured above. Photograph kindly provided to this account by his nephew Mr Stephen Munzer. I thank him for contacting me and for this photograph.

Walter Livesey and his name inscribed on the Runnymede Memorial. Through contact with his son Keith much more detail about Walter Livesey is known. He enlisted into the RAF on 12th September 1935 as an armourer and was posted to 58 Squadron six months later. On 14th October 1938 he remustered as an air gunner and begun training having been posted with 58 Squadron up to Linton on Ouse some six months previously. He qualified as an air gunner on 20th November 1938. On 15th May 1940 he changed trades and begun training as an air observer and qualified as an observer on 13th April 1940 having trained at 4 AOS and the School of Air Navigation. He was posted to 78 Squadron on 4th March 1940 but it is not thought that he flew any operational flights with 78 Squadron. He was then posted to 102 Squadron on 11th May 1940 and he and Sgt West became regular crewmates in the months that followed.

They flew their first operational flight together on 11th/12th June 1940 to Turin with Sgt Frank Tizard as captain, P/O A G Davies as second pilot and Sgt Angus S Wilson as rear gunner. His next with the same crew the following night to northern France and again with the same crew on 14th/15th June 1940 to Oberhausen or Cologne (crews were briefed accordingly). The aircraft was hit by flak and slightly damaged but the pilot was able to make a safe return to base. It's identity is recorded in the unit ORB as being Whitley N1528 "E" but this must be incorrect as N1528 was lost in France in May 1940. Whitley N1502 became the next "E" and this is it's likely identity. On 18th/19th June 1940 they, with the same crew, flew Ops to Bottrop and Sterkbade and then Walter Livesey appears to have been given a period of leave as he next flew operationally on 1st/2nd August 1940 on Ops to Dusseldorf in Whitley P4995 "E"; again with Sgt Tizard as pilot and Wilson as rear gunner but for the first time with P/O Jack Crawford as second pilot. On 10th/11th August 1940 Crawford (as captain), Osborn (second pilot), Livesey and West flew Ops to Frankfurt in Whitley P4995 with Sgt W Swan as rear gunner. On 15th August 1940 their home airfield of Driffield was attacked by the Luftwaffe but all escaped unhurt.

102 Squadron were loaned to Coastal Command in September 1940, initially Osborn and crew were posted to Prestwick and on 6th September 1940 P/O Crawford and crew (one assumes Osborn, Livesey, West and Swan at this stage) flew Whitley P4995 to Silloth to experiment in fitting depth charges to the aircraft. Two days later Osborn and crew were posted on attachment to Aldergrove and on 10th September 1940 flew their operational convoy patrol (the crew being Crawford, F/O P Foster, Livesey, West and Sgt R Adams). On 13th September 1940 they flew a second convoy patrol but with F/O Sproule as second pilot in place of F/O Foster. On 14th September 1940 Sgt's West, Livesey and Adams flew with P/O Leonard Cheshire on a flight to find the damaged S.S. Harpender. The Harpender later sank.

On 1st October 1940 the five crew who were together in the Ebberston incident flew together for the first time, to locate a convoy in bad visibilty, they failed to locate the convoy and returned to base at Aldergrove. On 10th October 1940 102 Squadron ceased to be attached to Coastal Command and returned to Linton on Ouse and Bomber Command. The incident at Ebberston took place on 26/27th October 1940. It is believed that Sgt Livesey did not fly again operationally until 27th November 1940 when the aircraft failed to return from Le Havre as previously stated.

In May 2011 I met Sgt Walter Livesey's son Keith and his wife Liz. I would like to thank them for an enjoyable evening and for the additional information they were able to provide to me and this account.

Jack Crawford received his commission to the rank of Acting P/O on probation on 10th June 1940. He was later graded as P/O on probation on 18th September 1939 and confirmed as P/O on 17th July 1940. He rose to F/O (war subs) on 18th November 1940 and F/Lt (war subs) on 18th February 1942. F/Lt Crawford was also to loose his life before the War ended; on 15th March 1944 Lancaster LM392 of 550 Squadron which he was captaining crashed near Artolsheim, Bas-Rhein in France after being shot down by an enemy night-fighter. The whole of his new crew were killed and were buried in the local cemetery. By the time of his death he was married to Pauline May Crawford.
Sgt Adams' full identity remains unknown and as a result no research has yet been undertaken.

The corner of the field where Whitley T4136 crashed.

Two pieces located on the surface with part numbers proving them to have been from a Whitley.

Through talking to locals in Ebberston it transpired that the aircraft came down just to the west of the modern-day plant centre at the southern edge of the village. Elliott Smock of The Whitley Project carried out a licenced dig at the site in August 2009 but prior to that myself, along with air historians Mr Albert Pritchard, Ken Reast and Dick Barton visited in January 2009 and located a number of pieces at the edge of the field to confirm the location in the field. Thus saving Mr Smock time in finding the site.

As already stated, during the licensed dig a live 500lb bomb was dug up very early on in the dig. The site had been scanned with a magnetometer and the first strong signal in the ground was dug in the hope that it would yield a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Instead of an engine the bomb came out of the ground and the dig stopped. A large scale evacuation of Ebberston and Allerston was carried out two days later as the bomb was detonated by a team from the RAF Bomb Disposal at Wittering. This incident is of interest to my wife's family, her parents, grandmother and god-parents were some of those to be evacuated. In the days after this controlled explosion a further search was carried out by the Wittering team but no further explosives were found but parts of the aircraft were recovered during this military search and passed to the Whitley Project's associate, Mr Ken Ward.

I would like to thank the farmer where the aircraft came down, Mr Craggs of Ebberston, for allowing this initial visit and for the information he was good enough to provide which allowed the search to be made easier. For the dig Mr Smock was responsible has made his own appeasements to the land owner! Following the bomb being discovered a number of local newspapers used my account in their press reports. All the information shown here is believed to be correct and written in good faith. With the events being well documented locally should there be any persons who are able to correct or add anything to this story I would like to here from them.

Back to 1940 monthly table.