P-51 Mustang 43-6768 near Paull.
Before documenting this incident I should point out that I need to buy the USAAF accident report to gain a more complete picture on what actually happened. The basics that have been discovered are that on 24th October 1944 this pilot was training with the 555th Fighter Training Unit, 496 Fighter Group, based at Goxhill, Lincolnshire. After taking off the aircraft would seem to have headed north-east, across the Humber and was flying in the skies to the east of Hull, Yorkshire. Around this time the engine started smoking and the aircraft then began to loose height. The pilot appears to have then turned around and attempted to return to Goxhill. The engine then failed and I presume that the aircraft was by now far too low to glide across the full width of the river to the Lincolnshire side so, in nearing the Humber and realising he would need to ditch the aircraft soon, the pilot then baled out around two miles south of Hedon, over land. He was too low for his parachute to deploy properly and he died while the aircraft crashed nearby. The location given within "www.accident-report.com" puts the location as being two miles south of Hedon, which would put the site as being just east of Paull.
Pilot - Capt. Charles Frank Hess DFC USAAF (1st Scouting Force) (O-802852), aged 22. Buried Cambridge American Cemetery, Madingley, Cambridgeshire (F/6/35).
I credit "www.chescoheroes.org" with researching Charles Hess' service.
Charles Hess was born on either 22nd or 23rd October 1922 in Philadelphia, USA to George and Carolina Hess. When he was young the family moved to a farm at New London, Pennsylvania. He left school in 1940 and attempted to enlist into the Army Air Corps but was unsuccessful so began studying at Lincoln University. In 1942 he re-enlisted into the Army Air Corps and was accepted this time. After training in the USA he qualified as a pilot in April 1943 and also received a commission. He was then posted to the UK and served as a B-17 pilot with 613th Bomber Squadron, 401st Bomber Group, USAAF. He was awarded the American DFC for his actions in returning a badly damaged B17 back to England on 12th January 1943 after all but four of his crew baled out over Holland believing the aircraft to be out of control. The remaining four crew managed to regain control and land at Manston. He finished his operational tour on 12th June 1944. After a period of leave he joined the newly formed 1st Scouting Force (Experimental) which was to explore using Mustangs to serve as mission scouts prior to the arrival of bombers. This unit appear to have been based at Honington. I have get to find any proper documentary evidence to confirm this but I believe that he was training with the 555th Fighter Training Squadron, based at Goxhill, at the time of the crash near Paull in October 1944 who were part of the 496th Fighter Group.