On the night of 3rd / 4th March 1945 the crew of this 158 Squadron aircraft took off from Lissett airfield at 18.30hrs to undertake an operational flight to bomb a synthetic oil refinery at Kamen. The Luftwaffe put into being Operation Gisela on this night which involved around two hundred night-fighters following the Allied bomber back to England and then attack the Allied aircraft was they were preparing to land. Of the 158 Squadron aircraft that were airborne on this night some had already made good landings back at Lissett before the attacks started, Lissett then effectively closed down the airfield for new arrivals and any of their aircraft still in the air were diverted to land elsewhere. Halifax PN437 appears to have been one of the ones that received the order to divert further north, they must have been in the general area of Lissett airfield at the time they were diverted and were possibly already in the landing circuit there. A number of the No.4 Group airfields diverted aircraft up towards the No.6 Group airfields of Leeming, Croft and Middleton St.George area which is probably where this one was heading towards but before it could clear the general Driffield area the Halifax was attacked by one of the night-fighters and badly damaged. At 00.30hrs the aircraft crashed onto a field near Sledmere Grange and all on board were killed. I speculate that the pilot was injured or killed in the attack and control was immediately lost, there by not allowing any of the other crew time to escape.
Pilot - F/Lt Christopher Alan Rogers RAFVR (150123), aged 22, of Northampton. Buried Billing Road Cemetery, Northampton.
Flight Engineer - P/O Cyril John Wilson Muir RAFVR (186969), aged 21, of Carterton, Oxfordshire. Buried Highcliffe Churchyard, Hampshire.
Navigator - F/O Douglas John Harris RAFVR (154392), aged 21, of Cheddar. Buried Cheddar Churchyard, Somerset.
Bomb Aimer - F/Sgt Robert Henry Houldey RAFVR (1586441), aged 21, of Hartpury. Buried Corse Churchyard, Gloucestershire.
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - F/Sgt John Wilfred Middleton RAFVR (1254118), aged 22. Buried Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery, Yorkshire (H/H/2).
Air Gunner - Sgt John Joseph Emerson Dent RAFVR (3041986), aged 20, mother of Alne, Yorkshire. Buried Waterhouses Cemetery, Durham.
Air Gunner - Sgt Edward Anthony Jack Farrow RAFVR (3005547), aged 19, of Aldeby. Buried Aldeby Churchyard, Norfolk.
Six members of the crew who died in the crash near Sledmere in March 1945. Sgt Hutchings far right, back row, was replaced as flight engineer by P/O Muir.
John Middleton's grave at Harrogate Stonefall Cemetery.
Christopher Rogers received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 22nd January 1943. He rose to F/O on 22nd July 1943 and to F/Lt on 22nd January 1945. The online CWGC database incorrectly lists him as being a navigator when infact he was a pilot.
Cyril Muir received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 23rd October 1944.
Douglas Harris received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 12th November 1943 and rose to F/O six months later.
John Dent was born in Durham in late 1924, when the CWGC compiled their records his mother was living in Alne, North Yorkshire.
A photograph of the crash site taken at the time looking roughly east.
A photograph of the general area of the crash, as seen from the minor road just to the east of the site looking west. Air historians Eric Barton, Albert Pritchard and Ken Reast located small fragments on the surface ar the site with permission from the land owner in April 2006 to confirm the location.