Halifax LK766? at Burn airfield.
During the evening of 13th November 1944 the crew of a 415 Squadron Halifax were undertaking a training exercise when they became lost. The crew were new to 415 Squadron having only arrived on 7th November 1944 from No.61 Base. Although they did not know it at that time the pilot ordered the six airmen to bale out in an area roughly between Grassington and Pateley Bridge. Both air gunners landed near Grassington. The bomb aimer, wireless operator and flight engineer landed in the Hebden Moor area and the navigator landed near Pateley Bridge. The pilot remained on board to try and land the aircraft, he made radio "darky" calls to request assistance to find an airfield and eventually landed at Burn at just before 20.40hrs. At 21.40hrs East Moor airfield received a telephone call from Hebden to state the three airmen there were safe. It was not until the next day that the other three were heard from, with the navigator suffering from the effects of exposure. While the aircraft received no damage I believe the incident is worthy of inclusion within this website because of the crew baling out and landing on high ground. It all adds to the bigger history of the air war over Yorkshire.
Mention of this incident was originally located in a police record by historian Brian Lunn who passed it to me, I then came across the incident mentioned within East Moor's station record book which added additional information and gave the aircraft as being "-Q" of 415 Squadron. The incident was not recorded in 415 Squadron's ORB. Just after this date Halifax LK766 carried the code "-Q" but had been coded "-V" in October 1944 so may not be the correct identity of the aircraft.
Pilot - F/O John Sinclair McGuire RCAF (J/37482).
Navigator - F/O N H Dalzial dalzeil RCAF (J/30877).
Bomb Aimer - WO T A J Barnett RCAF (R/171480).
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - F/O P Donlan RCAF (J/42364?).
Mid Upper Gunner - F/Sgt J D Renaud RCAF (R/179332).
Rear Gunner - F/Sgt A Begin RCAF (R/259732).
Flight Engineer - Sgt B Howard RAFVR (2218547).
Halifax LK766 was built to contract ACFT/891 by Fairey at Stockport and was delivered directly to 432 Squadron at East Moor on 16th February 1944. It carried out it's first operational flight on 1st March 1944. On 29th June 1944 it crashed on landing at East Moor, Cat.Ac/FB damage was the damage assessment and it was repaired on site, being returned to 432 Squadron on 18th July 1944. On completion or shortly after completeion of the repairs it was transferred to 415 Squadron, also based at East Moor, but the date of transfer is not included on the aircraft's AM Form 78. The AM Form 78 does state however that on 10th October 1944 it received a Cat.Ac/FB damage assessment. Exactly what this related to is not confirmed because the 415 Squadron records are very poor at fully identifying aircraft flown operationally. The orb lists a few aircraft being damaged on Ops on the evening of 9th October 1944 and LK766 must be one of these ("-V" was one of these). A repair on site was carried out and the aircraft was returne dto 415 Squadron. It was returned to 415 Squadron on 3rd November 1944. On 13th November 1944 a number of the crew may have been flying in this aircraft when they abanonded the aircraft over the Pennines during a training flight and although the aircraft was landed without damage by the pilot at Burn all his crew spent the night on the Pennines before being located. It was later transferred to 187 Squadron at Merryfield for Transport Command duties on 14th February 1945 and was used for troop movements though the unit converted to Dakota's before duties commenced. The aircraft then probably went into MU store before being struck off charge on 11th May 1945 and scrapped.