Aircraft Crashes on and around the North Yorkshire Moors

Blenheim off Scarborough.

At 11.00hrs on the 9th of January 1942 a Blenheim dived into the sea 2.5 miles east of Scarborough with fatal results. The sea was rough and weather conditions bad at the time. The crew were on an air to air firing exercise when their aircraft dived into the sea. Nothing was ever found. Presumably the W Op's body was washed ashore.

54 OTU O.R.B. states: "9. 1.42. 11.00 hrs., 1025672 Sgt. B. JEPSON, 1160303 Sgt W.T. HIGGS, in Blenheim I. Air to air firing, dived into sea, nothing found."

Pilot - Sgt Bernard Jepson RAFVR, of Stretford, Lancashire. Body never found, commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.

W Op / Obs - Sgt William T Higgs RAFVR, aged 22, of King's Norton Birmingham. Buried Brandwood End Cemetery, Birmingham.

Thanks to Mr G Sharpe for telling about this one.

The body of a Sgt George J Peck RAF, but of 50 First Ave, Brooklyn, New York, USA was washed ashore at Cloughton Wyke on the 18th of Jan 1942, at the time the police assumed he was on this aircraft but he was actually on board Wellington R1759 which crashed into the sea off Whitby on 15 Jan 1942. Peck is buried in Driffield Cemetery, he was 22 years old.