Halifax LK831 at Holme on Spalding Moor airfield.
During the evening of 5th January 1945 this 76 Squadron aircraft was flown on an operational flight to bomb Hanover and took off from Holme on Spalding Moor airfield at 16.33hrs. The crew released their bomb load from 19,000 feet at 19.21hrs. Nothing out of the ordinary seems to have occurred during the operational sortie and the crew landed normally at Holme on Spalding Moor at 21.50hrs. When the brakes were applied and then the engine power cut the aircraft failed to slow down. It ran off the end of the runway into a ditch some seventy yards beyond the end of the concrete. The starboard undercarriage and the propellers sustained damage. The AM Form 1180 noted that this ditch had already seen three other Halifaxes and two Lancasters suffer similar damage due to this ditch though work was planned to cover it over.
Pilot - F/O Frederick Finlay Armstrong RCAF (J/87608).
Bomb Aimer - F/O David Reginald Behenna RAFVR (154909)
Navigator - P/O D C Patching RCAF (J/90737).
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - WO J R Tourangeau RCAF (R/82481).
Air Gunner - F/Sgt D E Heaps RCAF (R/193768).
Flight Engineer - P/O Frank Marsh Oglesby RAFVR (186207).
Air Gunner - F/Sgt L Leighton RCAF (R/201690).