Only days after loosing one Hudson on the Moors, another was lost. Again heavy snow was on the ground. The Hudson left Thornaby at around 11.15hrs on the 22nd January 1941 and flew south, the crew were ferrying the aircraft to another airfield, St Eval in Cornwall where it was urgently needed for ops. It flew over Swainby very low and height still was not gained and it crashed soon after striking the next moor top. The aircraft struck the moor and crashed down this for a short while before coming to rest near the join of two small streams, near a modern day well known beauty spot and burnt out. It crashed at 11.30 hrs whilst on route from Thornaby to Cornwall. Two of the four crew were killed in the crash, one of the survivors (thought now to be McHugh) walked down the beck for help. The first house he came to was a small cottage just north of Osmotherley, he woke the elderly lady and summoned help. The other stayed with the wreck, presumably he was more seriously injured. The Inquiry to the crash put the blame of culpable negligence on the navigator for setting a course without considering the high ground which lay in the way. The pilot was also partly blamed as it was said that he knew the hills were there and should have remembered and flown higher, he apparently did remember but pulled up too late to avoid crashing. The wreckage was mainly cleared from the site soon after by the RAF, young boys found some .303 rounds in the beck bottom in the mid 1940's. The aircraft was delivered to the UK on the 15th of August 1940 after it was built by Lockheed Aircraft at Burbank.
The aircraft was built by Lockheed-Vega at Burbank, California and purchased without contract by the B.P.C. It was shipped to the UK arriving on 15th August 1940. After assembly and testing at M.U. it was issued to 220 Sqdn at Thornaby. In the incident detailed above it was written off with Cat E2/FA damage.
Killed were :
Nav / 2nd Pilot - Sgt Laurence B Scase RAFVR, aged 24, ot Thetford, Norfolk, buried Stoke-On-Trent Hartshill Cemetery.
W Op / Air Gunner - Sgt William Parfitt RAFVR, aged 23, of Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, buried Stoke-On-Trent Longton Cemetery.
Injured were:
Pilot - Sgt C Smith RAF, serious burns.
W Op / Air Gunner - Sgt Thomas J McHugh RAF, burns. Of Finsbury Park, Middlesex.
Sgt Parfitt and Smith.
I am sorry about the quality of these two photos, they come from a poor copy of the 220 Sqdn photo taken 4th April 1939.
The area where the aircraft crashed.
John and I visited the site in March 2003, we found only afew small melted remains of alloy near a stream. Nothing else nearby was found. Oxygen bottles and larger remains were to be found until the mid-1980s
but since then everything has gone.
All the remaining wreckage.
My thanks to Mr Bell, now of Scarth Nick for his memories of this crash.
Sgt McHugh was later promoted to F Sgt, he went missing on 6th Aug 1941 still serving with 220 Sqdn, he is listed on the Runnymede Memorial. He was only 20 years old. My thanks to Mr McHugh who has contacted me regarding his uncle who survived this crash on the North York Moors.
Sgt Parfitt, then an A/C, was partly responsible for the sighting of the German prison ship the "Altmark" at eight minutes to one in the afternoon on the 16th Feb 1940, his 220 Sqdn Hudson coded "V" was one of three aircraft which located the ship and eventually led to those imprisoned on her to be freed by Royal Navy.
His crew that day were: Flt/Lt Downton, F/O Thwaite, A/C Parfitt, LAC Wilson. They had been searching since dawn of the that day in misty conditions, this cleared by mid-day and the "Altmark" was spotted, the Hudson's made their approach, one of which dived low and the ship's name was clearly seen, the other aircraft shadowed the first aircraft. The Royal Navy having being alerted arrived at 2 PM, in the form of HMS Cossack who were able to free the prisoners on board the German ship.
220 Squadron came to Thornaby on 21st August 1939. F/O Henry Thwaite went missing on 15/4/1940 still serving with 220 Sqdn, he was 23 years old.