Wellington W5557 on Hatfield Moor, Lindholme.
On the night of 26th / 27th September 1941 the crew of this 305 Squadron aircraft undertook an operational flight to bomb Cologne and took off from base at Lindholme at 19.27hrs. All appears to have gone without incident outbound and over the target area. Fog was over Lindholme during the early hours of 27th September 1941 and while it was clear air above 500 feet, lower than that fog was seriously effecting visibility. Added to that other aircraft who were returning to Lindholme were short on fuel so there was a possibility that Wellington W5557 may also have been low on fuel or even run out of fuel. Having flown back into the general area of Lindholme airfield the crew lowered their undercarriage and were making an approach to land when it was thought that the pilot either misjudged the height the aircraft was flying or it had run out of fuel and the pilot was attempting a forced landing. The aircraft struck trees and then crashed on Hatfield Moor, just short of the airfield at 01.30hrs. Sadly three members of the Polish crew were killed in the crash and a fourth died just over twenty four hours later in Hospital in Doncaster Hospital.
I think it's worthwhile mentioning various things below after stating the facts surround the crash. A few Wellingtons crashed on land around Lindholme airfield during the Second World War with more than one undoubtably crashing on the Hatfield Moors area next to the airfield. In recent years one of the crash sites has had a well constructed memorial placed at it and is within the Humberheads Nature Reserve. The memorial is dedicated to the crew of Wellington W5557. As the International Bomber Command Centre have adopted this as being correct then this now appears to be "fact". It may well be correct but using purely contemporary records there is actually no proper evidence of this. All is stated is that it flew into trees and crashed on the Hatfield Moors. I would welcome contact from anyone who perhaps knows more.
A ghost nick-named "Lindholme Willy", "Billy Lindholme" or "Pete the Pole" has reputed to have been seen a number of time on Lindholme airfield and in cells of the prison which now occupy the airfield site. He is believed to have been the ghost of one of the crew killed in the accident to W5557. In addition to this story the body of a Polish airman was found in the Hatfield Moors area on 23rd July 1987 during peat cutting by a local farmer, various stories exist as to whether he was identified or not, but he was buried at Newark and the ghost stories have apparently ceased since then. There are no "Unknown" Polish graves in the large Polish plot in Newark Cemetery. Using the casualty file (AIR81/9282) for the crew of Wellington W5557 this body certainly was 100% not from the crash of Wellington W5557. In that file is a list of injuries each airman sustained so an examination was carried out, none were listed as missing, and because that burial documents in the file states that those who died were all buried on 30th September 1941. So any body found in 1987 cannot be from the crew of W5557. If it was found at the location where there is Wellington wreckage and also where the memorial to W5557 is then this certainly is not the crash of Wellington W5557. Again I would welcome contact from anyone who knows more.
Air historian Eric Barton looked into this crash site in the late 1990s and he credited the "memorial" crash site aircraft as being Wellington R1073 which crashed on 11th June 1942. Wellington Z8586 is believed to have crashed near Wroot on 15th April 1942 and crashed into a "mound" killing two of the crew. Z8586 may be at the memorial location though this aircraft was initially assessed as Cat.B repairable damage and later re-assessed as Re-Cat.E which would not exactly tally with the severely damaged wreckage state at the memorial location. Both are more than worthy suggestions in my belief.
Pilot - Sgt Eugene Buszko PAF (P/780447), aged 27. Buried Newark Cemetery, Nottinghamshire.
Wireless Operator - Sgt Jerzy Slawomir Leyche PAF (P/781385), aged 23. Buried Newark Cemetery, Nottinghamshire.
Air Gunner - Sgt Wictor Wasilenko PAF (P/781021), aged 18. Buried Newark Cemetery, Nottinghamshire.
Second Pilot - Sgt Tadeusz Korczyk PAF (P/780686), aged 27. Died of injuries 28th September 1941. Buried Newark Cemetery, Nottinghamshire.
Navigator - P/O Stanislaw Barzdo PAF (P/0079). Injured.
Air Gunner - Sgt Zdzislaw Pisarek PAF (P/781742). Injured.
Wasilenk, Leyche, Korczyk and Buszko were buried on 30th September 1941 at Newark.
One of the survivors to the crash of Wellington W5557 was F/Lt Barzdo, he was killed on 4th May 1942 flying in 305 Squadron Wellington Z8406 on Ops to Hamburg, he was twenty six years old. He was posthumously awarded the Polish Virtuti Militari.
I visited the crash site on the Hatfield Moors in June 2014 which may be Wellington W5557. A wooden memorial cross was erected at the crash site some years ago and combined with the inclusion of a red wreath it is easily visible. The area was flooded some years following many years of peat cutting activities. Part of this crash site was not cut away during peat removal and today it is left as an "island" in the flooded nature reserve.
I also visited another crash site in the same Humberheads area on this day which is credited elsewhere on the internet as being another Wellington but this other site is actually a Lancaster.
A couple of typical Wellington part numbers identifiable by the "285" number prefixes.
A tiny fragment of a bakelite Air Ministry component.
Also worthy of note is that on 7th August 1941 the aircraft was being flown on an operational flight to Essen, while over Germany the aircraft was subject to an intense flak and searchlight barrage. The pilot took evasive action and the rear gunner, F/Sgt Eugeniusz Grabowski PAF (P.781607), believing the aircraft was out of control, baled out. He survived and became a PoW. The aircraft received no damage and the remaining crew flew it safely back to Lindholme.
Wellington W5557 was built to contract B.71441/40 by Vickers Armstrong's Ltd. at Weybridge and was awaiting collection in May 1941. It was received by 12 MU on 28th May 1941 and after a period of two months in storage it was taken on charge by 305 Squadron at Lindholme on 20th July 1941. As a result of the accident on 27th September 1941 Cat.E2/FB damage was recorded on the paperwork.