On the evening of 14th March 1945 the crew of this 51 Squadron aircraft took off from Snaith airfield at 17.21hrs to bomb the German town of Homberg. On their return to base the crew made three attempts at landing and overshot on all three occasions, after the third overshoot the aircraft lost height and crashed at 23.30hrs into (or close to) a WAAF site on the edge of Snaith airfield complex at Little Heck, near Pollington. Sadly all eight airmen in the aircraft were killed. If the aircraft indeed crashed onto the WAAF site then it was remarkable that no WAAF's would appear to have been killed as a result of this incident given it was at a time when many would be in their beds.
This is probably the incident mentioned in a railway occurance book that blocked the East Coast Main Line, stated to have been at Heck.
Pilot - F/O Stanley George Chopping RAFVR (188188), aged 22, of Northbourne, Bournemouth. Buried Kinson Churchyard, Hampshire.
Second Pilot - P/O David Johnston Hovell RAFVR (184910), aged 31, of Dundee. Buried Dundee Eastern Necropolis, Angus.
Flight Engineer - Sgt Griffith Williams RAFVR 93010661), aged 19. Buried Minffordd Cemetery, Merioneth.
Navigator - F/Sgt George Henry Elliott RAFVR (1607037), aged 33, of Portsmouth. Buried Portsmouth (Milton) Cemetery, Hampshire.
Bomb Aimer - F/Sgt Mowbray Samuel George Mumford RAFVR (1389826), aged 22, of Cowes. Buried Northwood Cemetery, Cowes, Isle of Wight.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - F/Sgt John Samuel Davies RAFVR (1514786), aged 23, of Blackley, Manchester. Buried Ripon Cemetery, Yorkshire (A/105).
Air Gunner - F/Sgt Victor Henry Andrews RAFVR (3005078), aged 19, of Alderton. Buried Alderton Churchyard, Suffolk.
Air Gunner - Sgt John Lambert Bird RAFVR (2225274), aged 24, of Kielder. Buried Newbrough Churchyard, Northumberland.
Stanley Chopping received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 28th November 1944. He must have been in the rank of Acting F/O when he died as normally he would need to wait six months after a commission to gain a promotion to a war substantive rank.
David Hovell received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 15th September 1944. In theory he should have received promotion to F/O (War Subs) the day after his death.
A small memorial plaque within the wider Snaith airfield memorial garden reflects the loss of the crew of Halifax NP932.
I have received historian Eric Barton's aviation research and his photograph shown above is captioned as being of the crash site of Halifax NP932 with notes that fragments of the aircraft were found with a metal detector around the building in December 2005 with permission from the landowner. The building appears to have been built on the actual crash site. Decades later a serious train crash occurred within yards of this flying accident.