Whitley N1488 at Dishforth airfield.

On 21st March 1941 this aircraft was reported as being slightly damaged at Dishforth but nothing more is known about how this occured at the time of creating this webpage. It was probably damaged as a result of flying Ops to attack the U-Boat base at Lorient on the night of 20th/21st March 1941 though the squadron ORB has yet to be consulted.

Crew - Names unknown.

Whitley N1488 was built to contract 75147/38 by Armstrong Whitworth Ltd. at Baginton and was awaiting collection on 3rd February 1940. It was taken on charge by 10 Squadron at Dishforth the following month. On 8th July 1940 it was transferred to 51 Squadron at Dishforth when 10 Squadron moved to Leeming. On 5th February 1941 it was slightly damaged and Cat.A damage must have been the maximum damage rating. It was almost certainly repaired on site, only to suffer this incident recorded above. By the end of March 1941 all 'N'-serial Whitley's had been removed from No.4 Group front line service. In April 1941 it was taken on charge by 10 OTU at Abingdon where it served until being transferred to 19 OTU at Kinloss. By August 1944 19 OTU had ceased operating Whitleys and this aircraft was placed into MU storage where it remained until being struck off charge on 12th July 1945.

It could well be that Whitley N1488 was not a very popular aircraft with crews, it was possibly never assigned a squadron code letter for either 10 Squadron or 51 Squadron and 10 Squadron clearly did not want it when they left Dishforth, passing it on to 51 Squadron.