Hurricane V7080 near Kirkbymoorside.
On 22nd October 1941 the pilot of this Hurricane was undertaking a cross country training exercise with No.55 Operational Training Unit (O.T.U.). The route to be flown was after taking off from base at Usworth was to climb to 20,000 feet and use Church Fenton airfield, Harrogate and Catterick as turning points before returning to base and to land at Usworth. The weather at base was good but upon reaching Middlesbrough on the first part of the flight south the pilot flew into poor visibility, the pilot lost sight of the ground. Opting to carry on he did not change course for that of his original track for Church Fenton but on flying for the time he calculated that it should have taken to get to Church Fenton he dropped through cloud and found he was near The Humber. Realising he had drifted slightly west from the planned route he turned east but could not locate Church Fenton because of low cloud. The pilot then decided to climb back to 20,000 feet and return to base because of the weather but was unsure of his position, after a few minutes he descended again and found himself over the Yorkshire Wolds. He then flew east towards the coast, then north to locate his position at Flamborough Head but was now in heavy rain, he the flew north to Filey, then north-west which would take him across the North York Moors. Over the Moors heavy rain was again a problem and as it was getting dark he turned south-west towards Kirkbymoorside where he made a forced landing at 18.25hrs. At the time of this incident the pilot had gained a total of ten hours on Hurricanes, while he escaped injury there was a recommendation that he was transferred to piloting bombers. This happened and he sadly lost his life later in the War flying Wellingtons.
The incident is not listed in a North Riding Police report transcript I have access to. This is very rare as pretty much all such forced landings appear to have been recorded by the police at the time, the police normally give reasonably accurate map references but in this case not having this to fall back on the location of where this landing was made is not yet known. A Lat-Long location is given on a report in the pilot's service file and this is in a field between Welburn Hall and Wombleton with the pilot stating in his report that the police were on the scene within minutes. If the Lat-Long is correct then it's an anomaly. If I was to speculate where the landing was made in this area then the Slingsby factory airfield site at the other side of Welburn Hall would have been my suggestion.
Pilot - Sgt James Dickison Massey RCAF (R/77245), of Eastman, Quebec, Canada. Uninjured.
James Massey was born on 4th December 1910 at Oxbow, Saskatchewan, Canada and was the son of John James Brunlees and Christina Helen (nee Dickison) Massey. Both his parents were born in Scotland but appear to have emigrated to the USA where they married in Chicago, USA in 1909 before moving to Canada. With James born the family lived in Saskatchewan for four years, Ontario for seven before settling in Quebec. James attended school in Verdun until 1929. As a young man he worked in Montreal for the Northern Electric Company between 1929 and 1931 and then 1936 to 1938 undertaking bench wiring and assembly work. In the years inbetween he worked for the Canadian Marconi Company in Montreal doing similar electrical assembly work on radios and radio transmitters. He left this line of work in April 1938 to start a farming business in being a small stock breeder breeding Angora goats with his father for their mohair wool. They moved to Eastman, Quebec around this time for the farming work business. He enlisted for RCAF service on 24th October 1940 in Montreal for aircrew duties and after training was awarded his pilot's Wings on 27th July 1941. He left Canada soon after gaining his wings. On arrival in the UK he was posted to 55 OTU at Usworth on 29th September 1941 to train to fly Hurricanes. The recommendation that he was transferred to fly bombers was soon acted upon and he was posted to 20 OTU at Lossiemouth on 18th November 1941 to train on Wellingtons. He was then posted to 15 OTU on 3rd February in preparation to fly a Wellington out to the North African theatre of war. He and his crew left the UK on 30th May 1942 (probably in either Wellington HX431 or HX393) flying out via Gibraltar and Malta arriving in North Africa. After a brief period of training in Egypt for Middle Eastern service he joined 108 Squadron on 30th June 1942 and flew with them operationally until joining 37 Squadron on 26th November 1942. While attached to 40 Squadron on the night of 22nd / 23rd February 1943 WO1 Massey was flying Wellington DV569 on an operational flight to bomb shipping in Palmero when the aircraft failed to return, he was sadly killed and is listed on the Alamein Memorial, Egypt.
I credit Brock Kerby with the photograph of James Massey shown here. Brock's uncle served on both 108 and 37 Squadron with him.
Hurricane V7080 was built to contract 85730/40/23a by Gloster Aircraft Ltd at Hucclecote and was delivered to 229 Squadron at Speke in January 1941. 229 Squadron embarked on HMS Furious for the Middle East on 10th May 1941 and it would appear V7080 was left behind as it appears on charge with 607 Squadron at Skitten in May 1941. 121 Squadron reformed at Kirton-in-Lindsey on 14th May 1941 so V7080's stay with 607 Squadron was very short, it probably never got to Skitten being diverted to the reformed 121 Squadron instead. 121 Squadron converted to Hurricane Mk.IIB's in July 1941 and V7080 moved on to 55 OTU at Usworth. It sustained Cat.R(b)/FA damage in the incident near Kirkbymoorside on 22nd October 1941 and was transported by road for a repair in works at a factory. After repair it was issued to 59 OTU at Crosby-on-Eden remaining with them until August 1942 when it was transferred to 56 OTU at Tealing. It was finally lost in a Cat.E2/FA accident on 11th November 1942 when it collided in the air with Hurricane T9521 during a formation flying practice and both aircraft crashed near Balado Bridge, Kinross, Scotland. Hurricane V7080 was piloted by Sgt Neville Jack Hussey Carter RAFVR (1317161); sadly both he and the other pilot were killed.