Lancaster ND656 at Wombleton airfield.
On the night of 23rd / 24th March 1945 1666 Heavy Conversion Unit supplied five Lancasters and crews to undertake diversionary "sweepstake" operational flights across France while the main Bomber Command force of No.5 Group Lancasters and No.8 Group Mosquitoes flew a bombing raid on Wesel, Germany. The purpose of the diversionary flights was to try fool the German forces into believing that another raid was taking place elsewhere from the main raid and then to divert German resources between the real raid and the diversionary ones. This Lancaster was crewed by airmen coming to the end of their training at 1666 Heavy Conversion Unit and who were soon to be posted to an operational squadron and this would also serve as good operational experience for them. They were the last of the five to take off from Wombleton on 18.36hrs, this and the other four 1666 HCU aircraft were instructed to use a series of turning points for the flight which appear to have been Reading, Hastings, Calais, Metz, Saarbrucken, Thionville, Abbeville, Reading, return to base. The points given the unit record book are given in Lat-Long and I have converted them to work out the route. After crossing the English Channel the route effectively took them pretty much in a south-easterly route from Calais down the North-Eastern French border to Saarbrucken and then returning in a slightly more direct route to the English Channel. The route was flown and they landed without incident at Wombleton at 01.43hrs. The aircraft was then taxied to a dispersal point on the edge of the airfield and two minutes after landing while the crew were making their closing down checks the flight engineer's harness straps caught on the aircraft's undercarriage lever. Without him or the pilot realising the lever was shifted and the wheels then folded up damaging the aircraft when it sank onto its belly. The damage was initially assessed as being Cat.B but it was later re-assessed as Re.Cat.E and written off. This crew were posted to 434 Squadron on 31st March 1945 with their training at 1666 HCU complete and they managed to complete a few operational flights before the end of the war.
Pilot - P/O Frederick William Cash RCAF (J/93092).
Navigator - F/O G.E.Jones RCAF (J/42763).
Bomb Aimer - F/O D.L.Summers RCAF (J/43939).
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - F/Sgt H.Nodelman RCAF (R/193780).
Air Gunner - Sgt Gordon R Dickie / Dickey RCAF (R/28811).
Air Gunner - Sgt Rodney W Chidley RCAF (R/290440).
Flight Engineer - Sgt Christopher Walter Skilbeck RAFVR (1623911).
The crew listed above. I credit Alan Soderstrom with this photograph.
Rodney Chidley was born in 1924. After the War he worked for over thirty years for Lyon's Tea and then Cadbury Beverages. He died in June 2009 in St.Catharines, Ontario.
Christopher Skilbeck was probably born in London in 1922, married Gladys Brown in Romford in 1944 and died in Chelmsford, Essex in 1999.
