At 11.30hrs on 24th August 1943 this 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit aircraft took off from Marston Moor airfield for the crew to undertake flying practice and along with the eight airmen three Air Cadets were allowed on the flight for air experience. The flight was for the crew to practice flying on just two engines. During the flight and while flying at 8,000 feet the starboard inner engine suffered a major problem and broke up, this caused the starboard inner engine's propeller flew off and parts of the engine cowling to detach and wrap itself around the tail. The starboard outer engine was also damaged. The aircraft began to loose height and fearing he was loosing control the instructor gave the order to abandoned the aircraft. The bomb aimer and the navigator were the first to leave through the front escape hatch and landed safely. One of the cadets being carried panicked and wouldn't jump from the aircraft so, with the instructor having regained some control of the aircraft a forced landing near Sherburn in Elmet was made. The aircraft crashed at 12.15hrs near the village church and was badly damaged when a wing struck a tree. All on the aircraft when it crashed sustained injuries, the most seriously injured was the panicking ATC Cadet. In the London Gazette a "Commendation for brave conduct when an aircraft crashed" is possibly linked to this incident, printed in the London Gazette on 3rd December 1943, Miss Margery Atkinson, S.R.N., S.C.M., Works Nurse, Sherburn-in-Elmet, Yorkshire received a commendation. The two who baled out landed near Sherburn in Elmet, their descents were seen by people in a vehicle being used to collect parachutists training at Sherburn in Elmet airfield and they were taken to the crash site in this vehicle.
Pilot (Instructor) - P/O Sydney Arthur Maslin DFM RAFVR (146330). Slightly injured.
Pilot (Trainee) - F/O Kenneth Alexander Petch RCAF (J/20188). Slightly injured.
Navigator - P/O Charles Louis Potter RAFVR (143465).
Flight Engineer - Sgt Ryszard Cederbaum RAFVR (1196325). Injured.
Wireless Operator - Sgt W H Curness.
Air Gunner ? - P/O John Napier AFM RAFVR (146609).
Air Gunner - Sgt R A Shirley RCAF (R/184754).
Bomb Aimer - P/O Thomas Mercer Telford RAFVR (138064).
Passenger - Cdt Calvert.
Passenger - Cdt Gorman.
Passenger - Cdt Rushden. Seriously injured.
A copy of Thomas Telford's flying log book of the date of this incident. I thank his daughter for kindly supplying this.
In 2013 Albert Pritchard, Eric Barton, Ken Reast and I attempted to locate this crash site following guidance from the landowner that he believed an aircraft had crashed into the field shown in the photograph above. They gave the long grass a sweep with metal detectors to try and find some sign of aircraft alluminium but found absolutely nothing though possibly due to the grass being very long. The photograph shown above was taken from the church wall. I since learn that this field has some form of protected status with it being the site of a much older settlement so perhaps fitting that we found nothing. The fields immediately north and north-east of this field are much larger fields and while purely speculation, they would have made for a better field to make a forced landing given it was daylight at the time of the incident and the pilot probably had some form of directional control. I would welcome further information to say which field the aircraft crashed into. The photograph below shows the much larger field.
Sydney Maslin was awarded the DFM for service with 77 Squadron, Gazetted on 9th July 1943, the citation for his DFM reads.. "F/Sgt Maslin has participated in a large number of operational sorties, and has at all times shown a complete disregard for his personal safety when attacking some of the most heavily defended German targets.” By the time notification of his DFM was printed in the London Gazette he had already been granted a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 20th April 1943. He survived the War having risen to F/O on 20th October 1943 and F/Lt on 20th April 1945. He died in Exeter in March 2009.
Petch, Cederbaum, Potter, Telford, Curness, Shirley and Napier were posted to 35 Squadron on 27th September 1943. On the night of 21st / 22nd January 1944 they were flying together in Halifax LW323 on an operational flight to Magdeburg when the Halifax was attacked by a night-fighter near Magdeburg and as a result the bomb load was jettisoned and the crew made for the UK. At 03.05hrs they made a crash landing at the Woodbridge airfield crash-strip and after an inspection of the damage it was deemed beyond economical repair. They were later posted to 77 Squadron.
Kenneth Petch was born in May 1921 in Calder, Saskatchewan, Canada. Possibly served in 635 Squadron. He remained in the RCAF post war and flew Lancasters with 407 Squadron in Canada, after leaving the RCAF Ken started a successful career in the lumber services industry. He died in December 2011.
Thomas Telford received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 30th December 1942. He appeared on National ITN News in 2012 attending Bomber Command memorial dedication in London. He died in May 2014, aged 93. I thank his daughter for kindly contacting me and supplying the photograph of his flying log book that mentions the incident on 24th August 1943.
John Napier was awarded the AFM while with 19 OTU, Gazetted on 2nd June 1943. He received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 29th May 1943 rising to F/O on 29th November 1943 and F/Lt on 29th May 1945.
Charles Potter received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 11th May 1943 and was later promoted to F/O on 11th November 1943 and F/Lt on 11th May 1945. He resigned his commission on 11th December 1946. Post-war he worked for "ZONDA" (International Argentine Airlines and later Aerolines Argentinas). He was later transferred to Portugal by the company where he died in 1959.