Halifax NA627 at Melbourne airfield.

During the afternoon of 22nd December 1944 this 10 Squadron aircraft was to have been flown on an operational flight to attack a target at Bingen. The crew took off from Melbourne at 15.10hrs but soon after setting course the hydraulics began to fail. The bomb load was jettisoned at 15.49hrs and the crew turned for home. At 16.25hrs the aircraft touched down on the runway at Melbourne that contained the FIDO installation, it ran off the runway and into the overshot area where the undercarriage collapsed. The squadron record scribe was less than impressed by this incident. Earlier in the month he recorded with some enthusiasm the new VHF Beam Approach and ground A.I. responder begun working at Melbourne. As a result of this crash he recorded that the A.I. responder aerial array was severely damaged rendering the SBA and VHF B.A. installations both unservicable.

Pilot - F/O Bernard Yates RAFVR (182761).

Flight Engineer - Sgt Philip John Mansell RAFVR (1867033).

Navigator - P/O William Ross Douglas McLeod RAFVR (183628).

Bomb Aimer - P/O Jack Gerald Gower RAFVR (186476).

Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - P/O Peter Colin Edwards RAAF (38423).

Air Gunner - Sgt Thomas Murphy RAFVR (2210907).

Air Gunner - P/O Dennis Edwards Addyman RAFVR (184147).

Air Gunner (under turret gunner) - WO L F Froud (Probably WO Leonard Francis Froud (1379219)).

Just days later on 26th December 1944 the first seven named above were flying Halifax NR246 on Ops to Saith-Vith when the aircraft crashed into the sea, almost certainly off Margate. In the days that followed the bodies of Murphy, Mansell and Addyman were washed ashore. The others have no known grave and are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
Leonard Froud had survived the crash of 158 Squadron Halifax HR754 on 4th April 1943 near Hornsea that killed many of his then crew.

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