Wellington near Broughton, Malton.
On the 16th of July 1943 this aircraft was being test flown, probably after repairs, to carry out a height test.
The crew left East Moor, to the north of York at around 11.15hrs and proceeded to climb to at least 12,000 feet in height.
Some 34 minutes into the flight the aircraft was in the Malton area and was seen by a Royal Observer Corps post to enter a left hand turn
and the dive vertically for around 4000 feet before breaking up and exploding in mid air. The crew would have stood no chance and sadly
would have been killed instantly. The majority of the wreckage came to earth to the west of Malton and in a field close to the southern end of
what is known locally as Jackie Lyons Plantation.
The larger peices of the aircraft landed close to where the A64 Malton by-pass was built some
30 years later, the by-pass may have infact been cut through the site. Other bits are known to have fallen nearer Broughton,
in fields near to the middle of the 'Plantation' at the Swinton Grange side. A heavy guard was placed on the wreckage
until its removal some days later. All six men onboard were killed, the sixth possibly being a member of ground crew, his number is
listed in the Form AM1180 but is not given in the crash investigation report now held in the National Archives. Perhaps he was not a fully
authorised passenger but had gone along to check work carried out previously.
In 2004 I was able to contact one witness to this incident, Mr Ray Magson of Appleton le Street biked to the crash site as a young boy, whilst he
did not actually witness the events his friend did and he recounted that it came to earth in "a million peices", the smaller peices
seemly floated down to the ground. Sadly Mr Magson passed away some months after I contacted him and I did not get the chance to return to the
site with him. He also suggested that the by-pass could have been cut through the main part of the crash site.
The crash investigation found the aircraft had broken up because of an excessive negative "G" force on the airframe, though no sign could be
found in the wreckage to account for this. The pilots main oxygen cock was set in the "off" position when it crashed, though this was
probably not a factor in the crash. The main conclusion was the pilots harness was found to be un-done at the time of the crash, later
types of Wellingtons were known to be nose heavy and in a steep dive with the pilot not strapped in this could have resulted in him falling
forwards across the controls with little or
no chance of recovering in a steep fast dive. Why the dive begun in the instance was not discovered.
The aircraft was built to contract 92439/40 by Vickers Armstrong's Ltd at Squires Gate, Blackpool and delivered to MU for
acceptance in June 1943 and then immediately onto 432 Sqdn at Skipton on Swale. It was clearly written off after such an incident and
Cat. E2/FA was recorded.
Pilot - F/O James E Morris RCAF, aged 28, of Chapleau, Ontario, Canada. Buried Ripon Cemetery, Yorkshire. Husband of Muriel E. Morris. He was an experienced pilot, have 1766 hours total flying time to his name, with 140 of these being on the Wellington type.
Nav - F/Sgt Gordon B Nesbitt RCAF, aged 26, of Shoal Lake, Manitoba, Canada. Buried Ripon Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Bomb Aimer - F/Sgt Joseph W Campbell RCAF, aged 25, of Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada. Buried Ripon Cemetery, Yorkshire.
W Op/AG - Sgt Harold V Baldwin RAF, aged 20, of Worthing, buried Durrington Cemetery, Worthing, Sussex.
AG - F/Sgt Vernon F Rector RCAF, aged 23, of Pickardville, Alberta, Canada. Buried Ripon Cemetery, Yorkshire. Husband of Anne A Rector.
Ground Crew? - LAC Thomas M Kearns RCAF, aged 23, of Quyon, Quebec, Canada. Buried Ripon Cemetery, Yorkshire.
F/O Morris and his gravestone at Ripon Cemetery. His rank shown on the caption below
his photograph is different to the one on his headstone.
The graves of the other four buried at Ripon Cemetery.
I grew up less than a mile from the crash site but never knew what had happened here until I began my research.
My thanks to (the now late) Mr Ray Magson for recounting his memories of this and other incidents around Ryedale.
I do not know exactly where this aircraft crashed, though, if the main site has not been destroyed by the A64 by-pass,
I expect that small bits have been ploughed in and could still be located to confirm the crash location. (A photograph of the general area is
to follow in this space). Correspondance with Mr John Lund of Broughton yielded other information, part of the aircraft and a least
one of the airmen landed in a field to the west side of the plantation.