On the 27th of March 1942 the crew of this aircraft took off from Dishforth at 20.29hrs to bomb St. Nazaire, because of heavy cloud over the target the crew did not bomb and may have dumped them in the channel on the return. The wind had changed direction on their return and they drifted too far west and the wireless failed. The navigator gave the pilot a direction of 035' to follow, however the pilot misunderstood this and set a course of 035'. It is believed they descended through cloud thinking they were more to the east and in the Vale of York. The aircraft flew into the ground on the southern flanks of Great Whernside at 05.25hrs on the 28th March 1942 injuring all of the crew.
Pilot - F/Sgt E Clow RNZAF (402450), injured.
P/O A Scott
Sgt Richard S I Ryder RAFVR (1267013). His personal details are not listed on CWGC.
Sgt G F MacKay
Sgt R H Craven
Sgt W A Jones
I have yet to locate the crash site.
The site has proved hard to track down in modern years. The first researcher I have found to have located the site was Graham Sharpe, he found the site by accident in 1969, he tried to locate the siet again some time later but was unable to. Alan Hudson also located the site some years ago but the same thing happened. The photograph above shows Mr Sharpe's peice. Although not visable it shows a "AW" (Armstrong Whitworth) stamp.
F/Sgt Ryder was lost on 6th September 1942, he is commemmerated on the Runnymede Memorial.
Sgt MacKay wrote a letter to The Dalesman magazine in the 1960s explaining what had happened. He lived in Filey after the War.