Halifax NP974 near Duggleby.
On the night of 18th / 19th March 1945 the crew of this 1663 Heavy Conversion Unit aircraft were one of a number of similar Heavy Conversion Unit crews tasked with flying as part of a diversionary Sweepstake operational flight to a location in France. The crews who took part would have been coming to the end of the H.C.U. training and would be nearly ready to be posted to operational squadrons. This aircraft took off from Rufforth airfield at 22.30hrs and must have undertaken the flight with the other aircraft. The basic accident card (A.M.Form 1180) makes reference to the crew struggling to raise the undercarriage during the flight but the reason for it being lowered has not yet been researched. It's unlikely that it failed to raise after taking off because they would not even have considered flying the operational flight with it lowered. On their way back towards Yorkshire visibility became a problem with fog effecting visibility. This crew became lost in the fog and with fuel running low they appear to have been over Lincolnshire struggling to find somewhere to land. Having already transmitted radio signals to request help from ground stations to pin point their position and give them assistance to land by 06.10hrs the fuel level was so low that the pilot ordered the crew to bale out. The crew landed in the Scunthorpe area with two sustained injuries on landing owing to not being able to see the ground towards their parachutes were taking them. The aircraft must have been left with the autopilot switched on and left on a roughly northerly heading, it flew on for some 36 miles before crashing near Duggleby, between Driffield and Malton.
Pilot - P/O Reginald Horace Edmund Aldridge RAFVR (184308).
Air Gunner? - Sgt Ronald Metcalfe. Broke ankle on landing.
The crew is an assumed one based on their postings to 78 Squadron soon after this incident..
Navigator - F/Sgt J Bridgwood RAFVR (1581984).
Bomb Aimer - F/Sgt J Davy RAFVR (1521006).
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - Sgt Victor Stokes RAFVR (1591095).
Flight Engineer - Sgt A Miller RAFVR (1826372).
Air Gunner - Sgt J W Edmunds RAFVR (1877673?).
A child of Sgt Metcalfe posted a request on an internet forum about this incident some years ago and added which adds some background to the crew and long before I created this webpage. This was this crew's second long distance "operational" flight while training at 1663 H.C.U. having flown to the Frisian Islands a few days earlier. During the Sweepstake flight on 18th / 19th March 1945 the "target" was Strasbourg and on crossing the Dutch coast their Halifax was fired upon by German artillery. The crew were posted to 78 Squadron (not 10 Squadron as stated on the forum) at Breighton on 1st April 1945 while Sgt Metcalfe was still in hospital.
The forum post states that their names were Eddie, Vic, John, Jock and Davey which fits with their surnames and initials given in the 78 Squadron orb. A second air gunner who was posted into 78 Squadron at the same time as this crew and whom flew with this crew was W/O B Lee RAFVR (1387336) but may have been a replacement for Sgt Metcalfe and not involved in the crash of Halifax NP974.