This aircraft was one of a number of fighters returning to Montrose from being used at Catfoss on Sunday, 18th April 1937.
The route in such case usually meant following the coastline.
Thick fog covered the North Yorkshire Moors coast
on this day, and the aircraft flew into it. One aircraft "got into difficulties" and the pilot,
it would appear, tried to force-land his aircraft on a road near Ravenscar. At one side of the
road there were telegraph poles, the other side of the road had poles carrying electricity. The
pilot clipped a stone wall along the road side with his undercarriage whilst trying to land, a
wing then struck an electricity pole with a flash, removing the wing and bringing down the pole
and wires. The aircraft then swung across the road narrowly missing a cottage, through the branches
of a small tree before coming to rest
in a field badly damaged 100 yards from the first point of impact with the wall. Two young children,
John and Eileen Brand (aged 2 and 3) had lucky
escapes, the broken electricity pole missed them by only a matter of feet. A number of locals had
witnessed the crash. The owner of the house that was missed by feet, Mrs Brand and owner of the
Crag Hill Hotel, Miss Smallwood are given mention in the local paper as rushing for help in Ravenscar.
One Mr H Gibson who lived close by was one of the first to reach the plane, he
told the local paper that he saw the pilot still conscious but hanging out of the plane by his safety belt.
Fuel was leaking badly over the area so Mr Gibson reached into the cockpit area and switched off the
aircraft to avoid the fuel being ignited. The engine broke off on impact and had made its own route
across the field and lay some 30 yards from the main wreckage. Whilst this was happening on the ground,
two other aircraft that
this Gauntlet had been flying with were circling over head. The pilot was lifted from the wreckage and carried to a
neighbouring house to await the Cloughton doctor, Dr B G Forman, arriving before being taken to
Scarborough Hospital with severe shock, head and chest injuries and puncture wounds. Twenty minutes after
the crash the fog began to lift, power to Ravenscar was cut off for some time before being restored by the
Scarborough Electricity Department.
The aircraft was built to contract 296880/35 by the Gloster Aircraft Co. Ltd. and delivered directly to 8 FTS on 2nd May 1936. It suffered
Cat W/FA damage in the above incident. The wreckage was taken to RAF Station Driffield for assessment on 22nd April 1937 where it was struck
off charge sometime later. It had done 206.55 hours total flying time.
Pilot - LAC Frank Morton RAF, of 52 Hinton Road, Ardington, Birmingham - seriously injured.
In February 2008 I was invited to search for the crash site with Ken Reast, Albert Pritchard and Dick Barton. The site is on private
farmland and permission to visit the site was granted by the Agar family of Ravenscar. The telegraph and electric poles down each side of
the road were removed some years ago. The house the aircraft just missed was actually two smaller cottages (onehad been the post office),
these were knocked into one and
in recent years the house has been made substantially larger. Which tree the aircraft clipped cannot now be determined although
a tree infront of
the farm house has been heavily cropped in the past and could be the one. Only one peice of the aircraft was found in the field and
possibly a spent .303 bullet found could have been from the aircraft possibly left in the aircraft after a firing exercise on the
Skipsea ranges prior to the crash. There is no visible sign of the incident today that we could determine. A number of other spent .303 bullet cases
were found but these dated to the War and was probably left by the Home Guard.
We thank the Agar family for allowing
the visit, the Brand family for information in locating the site and to a lady who lives nearby for her research work on the day.
I would like to thank Ms Lilian Macdonald for contacting me in October 2008, her father being the pilot involved in this incident.
Whilst knowing little about the Ravenscar incident she does know more about her fathers Wartime flying.
He was lucky to escape with his life in this incident and had completed a total of 143 hours flying prior to the crash, 17 hours of
these were on the Gauntlet and all these being in the six months leading up to the crash. He gained his Wings at Christmas 1936,
after training at 8 FTS, Perth. Sgt Morton continued his
training and was married to Jessie in December 1937 and joned 263 Sqdn. They had a daughter in November 1940 whilst
he was stationed at Drem. He would be posted to Exeter in late-1940 with the squadron. Not long after on the 9th January 1941
he was sadly killed whilst
operating from Cornwall and in a family letter he was killed in a flying accident near Ebford, Exeter.
"Frank was flying a Blenhiem with a gunner and observer and had been sent to bomb German shipping at L'Orient in France. The plane
was hit and one engine was destroyed. He managed to fly it back to England but smoke was pouring from the plane and the engine blew up.
Frank was thrown from the plane" when it crashed.
