Whitley Z6653 hit by flak, returned to Topcliffe airfield.
On the night of 12/13th September 1941 the crew of this aircraft were tasked with Ops to Frankfurt and took off
at 20.11hrs. The crew bombed from from 10,000ft but was hit by flak. The pilot was able to make the return to Topcliffe and
land without further damage at 05.50hrs.
Pilot - Sgt Derrick N Riley RAF (986904), uninjured.
2nd Pilot - Sgt George W McDonald RAFVR (521585), of Newcastle on Tyne.
Obs - Sgt D R P Williams
WOp/AG - Sgt William Nicoll RAFVR (979889), of Crook, Co.Durham.
AG - Sgt J R Jones
Sgt Williams was later commissioned (97062) and ended the War as a PoW.
Sgt McDonald was killed on 8th November 1941 flying in Whitley Z9212 on Ops to Essen.
He was twenty five years old and is buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery, Germany.
Sgt Nicoll was killed on 28th April 1942 flying in Halifax R9528.
He was buried in Dunkirk Town Cemetery, France and was twenty years old.
It is very likely that the pilot was one Derrick Riley. He was born in 1915, and commissioned on
24th April 1942 (120979) to P/O on probation (emergency) and rose to F/O (war subs)
on 24th October 1942 and to F/Lt (war subs) on 24th April 1944.
He was MiD with a huge number of service personnel in June 1943 and as
F/Lt he was awarded the DFC for service with 692 Squadron, the awarded Gazetted on
13th June 1944 for his work in piloting Mosquitos.
He survived the War and became interested in, and in later years, became a pioneer of
aerial photography used to discover and record
many new archaeological sites in England. He published a number of books and one of his books
"Aerial Archaeology in Britain" was re-printed in 2009 after his death in 1993. Sheffield University
run a grant fund set up in his memory.