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| RCAF Crash Site Staines |
The following is an account of an event that the author witnessed as a child of eight years of age.
Some thirty five years later in 1978 a serious attempt was made to investigate and find out more about this aircraft and the men that died in it. In the following year I was fortunate in having access to a meticulously kept diary of the late Mr Wild an A.R.P. warden and a farmer in a neighbouring village of Sipson. This diary documented local war time events from 1939 to 1945 and confirmed the date as that of the 16th Sept 1943. The current rumour at the time was that it was crewed by Canadians, as a member of the Civil Defence Corps being first on the scene identified a Canadian accent from a crew member who tragically died on route to hospital.
In order to further the investigation, a visit to the Canadian section of the Commonwealth War Graves at Brookwood Cemetery helped to locate three grave markers dated the 16th September 1943 and identified the Squadron as No. 427
Located in the National Archives at Kew (formally the public record office) is the Squadron’s Air Record Book, and from this one was able to piece together the full details of the crew, the mission, aircraft type, bomb load and crash details.
In the preparation of this account at the time, I was able to make contact with the U.K. crew’s relatives, and more recently their Canadian counterparts.
My thanks went to Mr Bill Gaiger of Wilmslow in Cheshire, brother of Sgt Alfred Gaiger who supplied the crew photograph. The sisters of Sgt David Coe told me much about his pre-service life where he worked on the Royal Estate at Sandringham, and gave a current photograph of his burial on 21st Sept 1943.
RAF LEEMING is still operational (1978) as a base of the Central Flying School but regretfully no airworthy Halifax bomber exists. In 1973, a partially damaged aircraft was located and raised from the bottom of a Norwegian fjord, after laying there for 31 years following a raid on the German pocket-battleship “Tirpitz” in April 1942. Its condition was such that restoration was not possible, but it is now on display at the RAF Museum at Hendon, North London, alongside another famous WW2 bomber, the Avro Lancaster.
The following is an account of an event that the author witnessed as a child of eight years of age. Some thirty five years later in 1978 a serious attempt was made to investigate and find out more about this aircraft and the men that died in it. In the following year I was fortunate in having access to a meticulously kept diary of the late Mr Wild an A.R.P. warden and a farmer in a neighbouring village of Sipson. This diary documented local war time events from 1939 to 1945 and confirmed the date as that of the 16th Sept 1943. The current rumour at the time was that it was crewed by Canadians, as a member of the Civil Defence Corps being first on the scene identified a Canadian accent from a crew member who tragically died on route to hospital.
In order to further the investigation, a visit to the Canadian section of the Commonwealth War Graves at Brookwood Cemetery helped to locate three grave markers dated the 16th September 1943 and identified the Squadron as No. 427
Located in the National Archives at Kew (formally the public record office) is the Squadron’s Air Record Book, and from this one was able to piece together the full details of the crew, the mission, aircraft type, bomb load and crash details.
In the preparation of this account at the time, I was able to make contact with the U.K. crew’s relatives, and more recently their Canadian counterparts.
My thanks went to Mr Bill Gaiger of Wilmslow in Cheshire, brother of Sgt Alfred Gaiger who supplied the crew photograph. The sisters of Sgt David Coe told me much about his pre-service life where he worked on the Royal Estate at Sandringham, and gave a current photograph of his burial on 21st Sept 1943.
RAF LEEMING is still operational (1978) as a base of the Central Flying School but regretfully no airworthy Halifax bomber exists. In 1973, a partially damaged aircraft was located and raised from the bottom of a Norwegian fjord, after laying there for 31 years following a raid on the German pocket-battleship “Tirpitz” in April 1942. Its condition was such that restoration was not possible, but it is now on display at the RAF Museum at Hendon, North London, alongside another famous WW2 bomber, the Avro Lancaster.
