On 7th September 1941 this 608 Squadron aircraft took off from Thornaby at 19.30hrs for a Blocking Patrol to cover Convoy EC70. On their return to Thornaby the aircraft overshot it's landing at and at 22.45hrs it crashed into the Stainsby Beck valley beyond the East-West runway. An air raid warning was in force at the time of the landing but because the Hudson was already in the process of making an approach to land the airfield lighting was left on. It was thought that the pilot had hurried his landing so to get the aircraft on the ground and also so that the airfield lighting could be switched off. All four airmen were injured; one so serious that he died during the night.

Hudson AM601 was built by Lockheed-Vega at Lockheed at Burbank, California, USA and was purchased to British Purchasing Commission contract A-1479. It was shipped to UK and arrived at Liverpool Docks in May 1941. From there it was transported by road to the Lockheed Assembly Division (UK) Ltd., at Speke for assembly and testing, then went to 12 MU on 23rd June 1941. It was taken on charge by 608 Squadron at Thornaby on 1st July 1941. It sustained Cat.E2/FA damage as a result of the accident at Thornaby on 7th September 1941 and was struck off charge four days later.

Pilot - Sgt Barclay Christopher McGuire Harrington RNZAF (401270). Seriously injured and remained in hospital until mid-January 1942.

Pilot - Sgt James Melton Foster RAFVR (927580). Injured.

Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - Sgt Douglas Leonard Bennett RAF (650477). Injured.

Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - Sgt Thomas Reginald Byron Corrie RAFVR (1254015), aged 26. Buried Thornaby on Tees Cemetery, Yorkshire.

The grave of Sgt Corrie. His birth appears to have been outside of the English and Welsh registration area but there was a Thomas R B Corrie who married in Surrey in 1939 so he must have been in England by that date. He died in the Durham South Eastern district suggesting that he was perhaps treated in Darlington hospital where he later died.

Wireless operator Sgt Douglas Bennett was a keen radio amateur before joining the RAF and worked as a projectionist at the Gaumont Cinema in Tottenham. He broke his hip in the crash of Hudson AM601 at Thornaby. He had spent some months recovering and was still not fully fit when he resumed operational flying. He was killed flying with the same 608 Squadron on 6th February 1942, when Hudson AM876 took off from Wick at 11.33hrs for an operational flight. The Hudson was damaged by anti-aircraft fire while attacking German shipping and then either crashed or was ditched in a Norwegian fjord. He and his pilot were killed and are buried in Trondheim Cemetery, Norway. Two other airmen, Sgt Thomas Birtwhistle (of Acklam, Yorkshire) and P/O John Watterson Kelly were never found and are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. I thank his nephew Duncan Bennett for kindly contacting me in November 2016 and for supplying the photograph and information shown here.