During the evening of 11th December 1943 this 254 Squadron aircraft was one of three tasked with flying anti-shipping / torpedo patrols called "Rover Patrols" over the North Sea. This specific aircraft's crew appear to have been ordered to patrol an area between Ameland and Heligoland and took off from North Coates at 16.57hrs with a torpedo. Exactly what happened out over the sea is unclear and I can only suggest that the crew had become lost. They did not jettison or release the torpedo during the sortie. On their return to the English coast the aircraft appears to have drifted far too far north so came in over land over the River Tees rather than The Humber with the crew probably being lost. The pilot made for the nearest land and saw the lights of what he probably thought was an airfield but they were the actually the light of the dummy airfield (Q.Site) at Grangetown, near "Lazenby Steps", situated close to the mouth of the River Tees. The location of the dummy airfield was on land midway between what was then Thorntree House and Wilton Grange, on the west side of Pasture Road and while attempting to land it crashed. A team from RAF Hospital Northallerton attended the scene and reported that the aircraft had crashed on a railway line whilst flying in the dark. Their ORB stated that the pilot was killed instantly but the navigator had initially survived suffering severe head injuries. The ORB also stated "the mobile surgical unit was summoned and transfused the patient three minutes after arrival after the local hospital had made eleven fruitless attempts. He recovered sufficiently to be brought into hospital where he died the next day." The crash investigation considered that the crew were not having a serious mechanical problem because the crew had not jettisoned the torpedo as would have been expected should there have been a serious problem. Because the aircraft was flying at such low level the radar would not work properly. At the time the aircraft struck the ground it was flying at just four feet above ground level (with presumably the railway line being on a slight embankment that the aicraft struck). The railway line mentioned must be the line that ran from Grangetown towards Warrenby / Redcar and to the north of the dummy airfield. Relating the land as it was in 1943 to anything in the modern era is very difficult with the development of the area after the war.

Pilot - F/O Thomas Sowerbutts RAFVR (135607), aged 27, of Blackburn. Killed instantly. Buried Mellor Churchyard, Lancashire.

Navigator - Sgt Henry Norman Pepper RAFVR (1530968), aged 22, of Rochdale. Died of injuries on 13th December 1943. Buried Prestwich Churchyard Extension, Lancashire.