At 00.36hrs on 26th June 1944 the crew of this 1667 Heavy Conversion Unit aircraft took off from Sandtoft airfield so the crew could undertake an exercise that involved night-time practice bombing and also a circuit flying exercise around the airfield. Ten minutes after taking off the aircraft crashed on land around two miles east of Thorne and was totally destroyed with all on board being killed. The crash investigation could not find anything wrong with the aircraft that would have caused it to crash other than stating that it may have flown into high tension wires (this suggests that the wires were not dragged down by the aircraft which would have given an obvious clue that they had been caught).
Pilot - F/O George Nevill Conyngham Smyth RAFVR (141352), aged 33, of Liverpool. Buried Willaston Churchyard, Cheshire.
Flight Engineer - Sgt James Stuart Cherry RAFVR (2209539), aged 20, of Prenton. Buried Landican Cemetery, Birkenhead, Cheshire.
Flight Engineer - Sgt Bruce Herbert Yates RAFVR (1895282), aged 18, of Burnt Oak, Middlesex. Buried Hatfield Woodhouse Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Navigator - F/O Edgar Charles Splane RAFVR (154056), aged 28, wife of Stafford. Buried Stafford Cemetery, Staffordshire.
Bomb Aimer - Sgt Edward Smallbone RAFVR (906002), aged 24, of Camberley. Cremated Woking, Surrey.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - F/Sgt Reginald Gordon Lugton RAAF (428278), aged 20, of Modella, Victoria, Australia. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire (B/G/17).
Reginald Lugton was born on 9th January 1924 at Bunyip, Victoria, Australia and enlisted for RAAF service in Melbourne. His service file has yet to be digitised.
Bruce Yates was buried locally to the crash site at Hatfield Woodhouse.
George Smyth received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 27th March 1943 and rose to F/O six months later. He is listed elsewhere on the internet as being a flying instructor on board this aircraft but, as yet, I have not found any evidence for him being other than a trainee pilot at the time of his death. His brother, Pte Kenneth Montgomery C. Smyth, died in the First World War on 1st November 1918 in the Norwich area. Aged just eighteen he is buried in the same Willaston Churchyard in Cheshire as his younger brother.
Edgar Splane received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 29th October 1943 and rose to F/O six months later.