Villagers honour bomber crew

[Kyt]

Villagers Honour Second World War Bomber Crew (from The Northern Echo)

VILLAGERS gathered yesterday to remember seven airmen, two of them aged just 18, who died on one of the most fateful nights in the wartime history of a North Yorkshire bomber base.

Four Canadians, two Americans and one Englishman perished on April 15, 1944, when their four-engined Halifax aircraft crashed during a storm on the edge of Bishop Monkton, between Ripon and Boroughbridge.

The plane came down 200 yards from the site of the present village hall, where a plaque commemorating the crew was dedicated yesterday in the presence of representatives of the RAF, the Royal British Legion, the Yorkshire Air Museum and the Allied Air Forces Memorial.

The men, all serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), died shortly before midnight as they were trying to return to RAF Dishforth from a cross-country training exercise.

They were the pilot, 21-yearold Sergeant Wendell Watkins Jnr; the navigator, 32-year-old Hugh Wallace; the bomb aimer, Sergeant Homer Muisiner, 23; wireless operator and air gunner Warrant Officer John Huddleston, 20; the flight engineer, Sergeant Kenneth Holden; 20; and air gunners Sergeants Lloyd Cull and Charles Lovett, both 18.

Wendell Watkins and John Huddlestone were Americans training with the RCAF and Kenneth Holden was in the RAF Volunteer Reserve.
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Air historian Leslie Green, who started researching the crash in 2002, said: gAn accident report afterwards said the aircraft may have been struck by lightning.

It hit the ground so hard that there was very little left of it.

gI felt I had a duty to do this research. If you donft, the stories will be lost. They represent not only military history, but social history because of the way they affect communities.h Peter Slater, who was 14 at the time, said: gWe heard this plane going very low over the house and then there was a crash and flames. Nobody could get near it. Next morning, we found oil on the roof of our house.h The plaque was donated by former villager Keith Whitfield.

He said: gJust a few older villagers still remember the crash, with parts of the plane strewn over fields.

gIt is etched into the history of the village.

gI felt the men who died deserved a proper memorial.ff One of Kenneth Holdenfs relatives, 89-year-old Edith Martin, travelled from her Manchester home. She said: gAt first I didnft want to come because of the distance, but I would have regretted it. It has been a very moving occasion.h The gathering heard Mr Green read a letter from Wendell Watkinsfs sister, Judy Pickering, in which she said: gOne consolation of my brotherfs death is that he died doing what he wanted to do.

Flying and serving his country were his passions.h The plaque, dedicated by former RAF chaplain, the Reverend Gareth Jones, will hang in the village hall entrance.

Only 20 minutes before the disaster, another Halifax from Dishforth, returning from a similar exercise, crashed into a house at Sowerby, Thirsk, after fuel to two of its engines was accidentally cut off. Five crew and three civilians died.

[Antipodean Andy]

It is always pleasing to see such losses commemorated and the men's lives honoured even so long after the event.