Halifax near Tollerton.

The Halifax took off from Croft at 13.25hrs for ops to Koln, the crew completed their mission and were returning to Yorkshire. For reasons unknown they were diverted to Linton on Ouse to land. Their first attempt at landing was over shot, they climbed away to 2000 feet with a view to going round and trying again when the starboard outer engine stopped and caught fire, the extinguisher failed to put the fire out and when the propeller flew off the crew abandoned the aircraft. The aircraft crashed at 18.58 hrs near Fleet Bank Farm, Tollerton and hit a row of trees before coming to earth just east of the modern A19 road. The reason for the engine failure was put at complete oil stavation to the engine, but because of the lack of remaining aircraft following the crash the reasons were never fully undertood. The crew all survived.

Pilot - Sgt F C Hart RCAF (R/174498), ok. He had a total of 243 hours flying when this crash occured, 110 being on the Halifax.

F Eng - P/O L Garding RCAF (C/86339),

Nav - F/O H Hunter RCAF (J/36266),

BA - F/O R Birch RCAF (J/56273),

WOp/AG - Sgt J Banville RCAF (R/169357),

MUG - P/O D Noble RCAF (J/89157),

RG - P/O W Newman RCAF (J/89191).

I have yet to visit the site.