On 18th November 1944 the crew of this 51 Squadron aircraft took off from Snaith airfield at 12.36hrs to undertake a daylight operational flight to bomb Munster. All appears to have gone normally for much of the flight and they made the safe return to the skies over Yorkshire. The visibility over and around their base at Snaith on their return was poor, the aircraft overshot the first landing and began to fly around the airfield circuit to line up for another landing. While flying a circuit of the airfield this aircraft collided with Halifax MZ559 (of 578 Squadron) which was also preparing to land. Both aircraft fell on land between the villages of Barlow and Camblesforth at 17:43hrs and sadly every one board both aircraft were killed. Parts of both aircraft that broke away in the collision are believed to have fallen between the two crash sites. I have yet to confirm exactly where the main bulk of each aircraft precisely landed. One crashed into a field just east of Sandpit Wood, Camblesforth (believed to have been Halifax NR241) while the other (Halifax MZ559) crashed into a field on Barlow Common, just west of Barlow village.
Pilot - W/O John William Bruce RAFVR (658340), aged 26. Cremated City of London Crematorium, Manor Park, Essex.
Flight Engineer - Sgt Jack Bidwell RAFVR (1666864), aged 40. Buried Wokingham Churchyard, Berkshire.
Navigator - F/Sgt Cyril Collas RAAF (434777), aged 23, of Camp Hill, Queensland, Australia. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire (H/C/1).
Bomb Aimer - F/Sgt John Dennis Suffolk RAFVR (1576034), aged 23, of Nottingham. Buried Nottingham Southern Cemetery.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - Sgt Peter Desmond Hockley RAFVR (1623536), aged 20. Buried Stanford le Hope Cemetery, Essex.
Mid Upper Gunner - Sgt Thomas Leslie Sumner RAFVR (1897833), aged 19, of Pontefract, Yorkshire. Buried Pontefract Cemetery, Yorkshire (X/1277).
Rear Gunner - Sgt John Charles Wilfred Smith RAFVR (1881209), aged 19, of Thorney, Cambridgeshire. Buried Crowland Churchyard, Lincolnshire.
Cyril Collas was born on 2nd March 1921 in Riga, Latvia but emigrated to Australia. He enlisted for RAAF service in Brisbane.
Historian Eric Barton spent some time field walking both crash sites and relating to the Sandpit Wood, Camblesforth site in January 1998 he found a few fragments of the aircraft (the general area is shown above).