Whitley P5018 damaged in air, returned to Leeming airfield.
On the night of 19th / 20th October 1940 the crew of this 10 Squadron aircraft were in the process of undertaking an operational flight to Osnabruck and had taken off from Leeming at
17.52hrs. Some forty miles off the English coast the port engine began to violently vibrate, the crew were unable to fix the problem so returned to base
and landed at Leeming at 19.31hrs where it was found that about six inches of a propeller blade had broken off but it was not known how the damage had occurred.
Pilot - Sgt Thomas Stanley Walker Towell RAF (590802).
Second Pilot - Sgt Leonard George Smith RAFVR (740149).
Observer - Sgt Michael Sutton Maas RAF (525809)
Wireless Operator - Sgt James Graney RAF (550962).
Air Gunner - Sgt Charles John Woods RAF (652254).
Sgt Towell was the pilot of Whitley T4234 when it was slightly damaged at Dishforth in early January 1941, he was awarded the DFM for service with 10
Squadron in January 1941, almost certainly after completing a Tour with 10 Squadron. He received his commission to P/O on probation on 12th April 1941
(with seniority from 26th March 1941), rising to F/O exactly a year later and to F/Lt (war subs) on 12th April 1943 (with seniority backdated to 26th
March 1943). He was Mentioned in Despatches with a huge number of other airforce personnel on 2nd June 1943 and on 18th June 1943 the notification
that he was to be awarded the DFC appeared in the London Gazette; it was awarded for service with 159 Squadron flying in the Middle East, North Africa
and India, the citation reads.. "F/Lt Towell is now on his second tour of operational duty. He has flown on a very large number of operational sorties.
Several times F/Lt Towell has flown his badly damaged aircraft safely back to base." He rose to S/Ldr (war subs) on 1st January 1945. He remained in
the RAF Postwar and rose to W/Co on 1st July 1952 before retiring on 12th December 1964. The photograph shows him (on the left) in the cockpit of a
159 Squadron Liberator and was found on a great website at "www.rafb24.com".
Sgt Maas was awarded the DFM for service with 10 Squadron, Gazetted on 18th April 1941. Nothing more is known about his service.
James Graney received a commission in March 1941 to the rank of P/O on probation (45950). He was later posted to 10 OTU and was sadly killed on
7th July 1941 in Whitley Z6476 when it crashed near Stratford upon Avon. He was twenty one years old and is buried in Sacriston RC Cemetery, Co.Durham.
Sgt Charles Woods was killed on 2nd March 1941 while flying Ops to Cologne in Whitley T4265, the aircraft crashed in the North Sea between Holland
and Suffolk with the loss of his then crew. He is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
Leonard Smith received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 17th July 1941 (102090) rising to F/Lt during the War. He transferred to
the Secretarial Branch of the RAF after War with effect from 1st January 1947 and retired from the RAF in March 1958 as F/Lt and retaining the rank of S/Ldr.