At 11.45hrs on the 10th July 1945 a glider from No.1 Glider School based at Sutton Bank crashed around from 4000 feet into the ground not far away from Sutton Bank. The civilian pilot who was undertaking a week long RAF advanced intructors course was badly injured, he was taken to hospital at Northallerton where he sadly died a few hours later. The glider was owned by Mr Jack Rice but civilian gliding was illegal in Great Britain until 1946 so the glider in the care of a military flying school. It appears common that individuals undertaking such training used gliders belonging to their pre-war clubs.
Pilot - Mr Joseph Hassall, aged 38. Died of injuries. Burial location unknown. Possibly cremated Lodge Hill Cemetery and Crematorium, Birmingham.
Joseph Hassall was born on 31st December 1906. He was probably the son of Joseph Emery and Mary Willis (nee Clendon) Hassall and who was born at Handsworth, Staffordshire. On the 1921 Census he, his parents and his older brother Harold Arthur Charles were living at Handsworth. This is most likely his family because on probate someone with the same name as his brother was named. In early 1930 he married at West Bromwich to Eunice Gertrude Wood and they had a son, Victor A, born in late-1932 in Birmingham. When the 1939 Register was compiled he is listed as being an electrical engineer and company director, living on Ebley Road, Handsworth. He gained his Royal Aero Club Gliding A-Certificate on 12th July 1944 after training at M.41 EGS at Knowle and his B-Certificate the following day.
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