The Last Flight of PD259 PO-J

Lancaster PD 259 — JO.G. 463 Squadron RAAF
An account of how I came to trace the wreckage of this aircraft and the fate of it's 7-man crew, originally written for the 467/463 Australian Squadrons Reunion on the 50th Anniversary of
VE Day in 1995

By Jim George of Whitehaven

•     When I first spotted, on p.250, in Nobby Blundell’s ‘463 History’, the entry of P/O W. A. Graham A413988 and that he was buried in Dalton-in-Furness cemetery I was curious as to why an Aussie should be buried only 3 miles from my home-town of Barrow-in-Furness. (My uncle, [ Mothers brother], Sgt. Ralph Chambers 1482755 RAF [VR] had been killed in action during the Berlin op. of 1/2 January 1944 when he was the F/Eng. in a 467 Sqdn. RAAF ‘Lancaster’ [ PO-K LM372 — a Mk. 111 type] skippered by F/Lt. L. B. ‘Pat’ Patkin A401146, RAAF, of Melbourne, Victoria.)

•     The sort of questions that arose in my mind were: “Why Dalton?”; “Had he emigrated to Australia just before WW2 began and was now buried in his home town?”; “Had he married a local girl?”

•     In March 1992 1 learned from the Barrow-in-Furness cemetery manager, (covering the Dalton-in-Furness area), that the ‘W. A. Graham’, buried in Dalton was ‘William Arthur’ and that he was buried on 21st August 1944. However, 463 Sqdn’s pilot of that name had been killed in action on 16th March 1944 when his ‘Lancaster’ JO-E, ED6OG collided with 625 Sqdn’s ‘Lancaster’ CF-L, ND637, as he was coming in to land at RAF Waddington, and crashed at Branston. All the crew in both aircraft were killed. (This was PlO Graham’s very first op. [ Stuttgart] with his own crew.) Was it possible that 463’s P/O Graham had been exhumed and re-interred in Dalton? (At this time I had also written to a ‘free paper’ in Barrow asking them to publish my letter which requested that any relatives or friends get in touch with me. There was no response).

•     By this time I knew, from a friend in Werrington, NSW, Australia, (John Williams), that a P/O W. A. Graham had been buried in Cambridge City Cemetery, UK, on 20th March 1944 — only four days after the death of 463’s P/O W. A. Graham. The Cambridge City Cemeteries Administrator told me, in a letter, that William Alexander Graham, “is still buried in the War Graves section of the City Cemetery, Newmarket Road” and that “There is no record of an exhumation having taken place at this cemetery.” The following paragraph, (from Cambridge), put in words what I had been suspecting — “I can only assume that there was somebody else with almost the same name buried at Dalton-in-Furness (Cumbria) cemetery.”

•     It would seem that the only way to settle the question was by way of the service numbers. Barrow cemetery manager reported that ‘their’ W. A. Graham was A42 1205. As the 463 Sqdn man was A413988 it would appear that they were in fact two different men. However, as 467 Sqdn’s ORB F541 for 1/2 January 1944, (the night they were killed in action with my uncle on the way to bomb Berlin), shows the two Aussie gunners, (Boettcher and Scott), listed with the wrong service nos., I decided to check with Cambridge once more. Their reply told me that, (from his headstone inscription, M.M. 398 Lodge U.G.L.) while it was clear that P/O W.A. Graham buried in Cambridge had been a Freemason, his service number was not inscribed there — a common occurrence in respect of RAAF officers.

•     The Commonwealth War Graves Commission finally settled the issue in Feb. 1993 when their reply to my letter gave the information that confirmed that the William Arthur Graham buried in Dalton, (they gave his rank as ‘Warrant Officer’ — the Barrow cemetery as ‘Flight Sergeant’), was A42 1205, and that ‘Pilot Officer’ William Alexander Graham A413988 was buried in Cambridge. (On the subject of ‘reinterrment’ the Graves Registration form for W/O Graham shows that he was initially buried on the Isle of Tiree on 20/8/1944 and ‘reinterred’ in Dalton-in-Furness the following day i.e. on 21/8/1944). The Graves Registration Form for PlO W. Akxander Graham A4 13988 shows his ‘Place of Death’ as ‘Blanston’ (sic), Lincolnshire, England’ — this should of course be ‘Branston’.

•     A ‘point’ which did crop up was that the Barrow cemetery records show that W/O Graham “lived at 26 Tummers Place, Askam-in-Fumess.” (Askam is a small town 2 miles north of Dalton and without its own cemetery). The name ‘Tummers’ seemed to fit — there is a ‘Tummers Hill’ on Walney Island (WW2 ‘home’ of 10 Air Gunner School) off Barrow. It was another 12 months before I found that this was another error.

•     With hindsight, it is easy to see how the identity of these two men could have been confused:
  i) name and initials: both men were W. A. Graham;
  ii) origins: both men were from Sydney, N.S.W.,
  iii) date of death: both men were killed on the 16th of the month. While the 518 man, William Arthur, was killed in August and the 463 man, William Alexander in March 1944 it can be seen that a carelessly hand-written ‘3’ (for March) could be taken, in error, for an ‘8’ (August) — and vice versa.
  iv) manner of death: both men were killed as the result of a mid-air collision with another aircraft. P/O Graham of 463 Sqdn when his ‘Lancaster’ JO-E, ED606 collided with ‘Lancaster’ ND637 of 625 Sqdn., and crashed at Branston, Lincs., W/O Graham, of 518 Sqdn., when his ‘Halifax’ LL186 collided with LL296 in cloud, in the circuit at Tiree, Scotland.

•     So far there has been no mention of PD259. But this is where 463 Sqdn. ‘come into the picture’ in the form of former 463 (and earlier 467) navigator Mick Holmes of Leicester. Mick had been shot down just a month after Uncle — during the Berlin op. of 30/1/1944. He and the B/A, Eric Brown, (of Sheffield), were the only two survivors of F/O George Messenger’s, (of Newcastle, NSW), crew in ED772 — and (by another coincidence) 463’s JO-G).

•     In one of my letters to Mick, I’d mentioned the ‘anomaly’ over the two ‘Grahams’ and, since the date (August 1944) had been given, he wrote back (in his letter dated 18/1/1993) with the information that, (according to his copy of ‘Lancaster Crash Log’), PD259 had crashed in Scotland on 31/8/44. It turned out that the date was correct but the reason (partly) for its crash ‘diverted after ops. due to bad weather at base’, was not.

•     463 Sqdn’s F540 for 3 1/8/1944, (monthly summary p.4), shows that while a/c of 463 Sqdn had been ‘engaged’ on ops. that night, (to bomb the flying bomb site at Rollencourt — Middlebrook’s ‘The Bomber Command War Diaries’ says “V2 Rocket Stores”), a P/O Beddoe and crew engaged on a cross-country flight and that they crashed 10 miles E.N.E of Kingussie. As the aircraft crashed in the mountains no information available until reached by search party.” Page 8 of the same summary, (signed by 463’s C.O., W/C W. A. Forbes), lists the 7 man crew of P/O Beddoe as “Ceased Detachment. Posted to War Cas. N/E Accts. Depot, A. M. Unit.” Page 55 of Nobby Blundell’s 463 History shows P/O R. H. Beddoe and crew listed as flying PD259 on this day.

•     At this point I was prepared to say, ‘Well, I’ve done what I set out to do viz. ‘sorted out’ the two Grahams and, after all, the 463 History (compiled from operation record books) is at variance with Halley (in his ‘The Lancaster File’) and Mason (in his ‘The Avro Lancaster’) over the date, and circumstances, of the loss of PD259, who am I to argue? In support of the date, however, of Nobby Blundell’s 467 History was Bruce Robertson in his ‘Lancaster — The Story of a Famous Bomber’, even though the circumstances ‘crashed operations’ was not.

•     But, it’s not just an aircraft. It’s seven men.

•     Nevertheless I didn’t feel like tackling this one at that particular time. . . but, there were seven men. They were:
  1) F/0 Robert Henry Beddoe, A418717, RAAF, pilot, 21, of Elsternwick, Victoria.
  2) W/O George Henry Middleton, 619089, RAF, F/Eng., 34, of Glasgow, Scotland.
  3) F/Sgt Frederic Murray Walker, A428834, RAAF, Nay., 32, of St. lves, New South Wales.
  4) F/Sgt David Henry Ryan, A418473, RAAF, B/A., 30, of Fairfield, Victoria.
  5) F/Sgt Terence Roy Dent, A4256l7, RAAF, W/op., 19, of Walkeston, Queensland.
  6) F/Sgt Stanley Arthur Abbott, A436790, RAAF, Mid - Upper Gunner 21, of Cottesloe, West Australia
  7) F/Sgt Bevil Milton Glover, A436579, RAAF, Rear Gunner, 23, of Malvern, Victoria.

•     And so in July 1993 I wrote, (more in desperation than hope!), to an Inverness ‘free’ paper, the ‘Inverness and Nairnshire Courier’, asking if anyone had any information about this aircraft. I posted the letter on 18/7/1993 and, in a matter of a few days, had a reply dated 26/7/1993 from a David Griffin (that name crops up more than once) of Inverness stating that he had, ‘the relevant details; crash site, existing remains of the aircraft etc,.’ The following month, thanks to David, a set of colour photos (taken by a friend) of the remains of PD259 were in my hands and, a few days later and also from David, a set of the original negatives on loan. From these negatives, I had a set of prints made, photo'd them using my x2 ‘converter’ lens and sent copies to Ted Richardson, Hon. Sec. of the 467/463 Lancaster Sqdns. Association, UK. In addition, David gave me the Ordnance Survey Grid Ref. of the crash- site: Sheet 35 (1/50000) :729.108.

•     After contacting, (in nearby Workington), local air historian Gilbert Rothery, who supplied me with the reference, further correspondence led me to David Smith (author of ‘High Ground Wrecks’) and his confirmation of the date of the aircraft’s loss as 3 1/8/44 — but again, ‘whilst returning from ops.’ When I queried his sources, David replied, "My sources for PD259 are RAF Longman, Inverness, Operations Record Book:- 1/9/44. ‘Crash party left by road for Kingussie in which ROC (Royal Observer Corps) had reported a crashed Lancaster. The bomber had apparently exploded in mid-air at an estimated altitude of 10,000 feet and debris was spread out over some 2 square miles. 6 bodies were found — 5 Australian, 1 British. 7th member of the crew was still missing when the party returned to Longman. Aircraft was traced as JO-G belonging to Waddington. Mountain section, Kinloss, brought in the bodies the following day’".

•     I learned from John ‘Blue’ Brennan (463 Sqdn. P/O F/Eng. in Ken McRae’s crew), of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, that he’d heard that the navigator (the missing 7th. man) was found with a broken neck at the foot of a cliff. (Presumably losing his way in the dark while on the way for help?). He was F/Sgt F.M. Walker A428834 of St. Ives, NSW., PD259’s F/Eng. was W/O G. H. Middleton of Glasgow and he was, according to John, very proud of the fact that he was the RAF’s first of that mustering. John and ‘Jock’ Middleton had met at Heavy Conversion Unit Winthorpe where ‘Jock’, with his earlier experience on ‘Stirlings’, had been able to help with (amongst other things) the technique of switching the petrol-feed, bearing in mind that the ‘Stirling’ had 7 tanks in each wing compared with 3 in each of the ‘Lancaster’ wings.

•     PD259’s crew had arrived, from HCU Winthorpe, 51 Base (or from Lancaster Finishing School?) to join 83 Sqnd. Pathfinder Force (at Wyton?) on 27/8/44. 83PFF’s historian, Frank Harper (of Widemouth Bay, Cornwall) even after nearly 50 years, recognised W/O Middleton on the photo I sent him because, “we thought he was really old for air crew. I was 19 at that time.” (W/0 Middleton was 34). The very next day, F/0 Beddoe and crew were posted ‘on attachment’ to 463 Sqdn. RAAF at Waddington. Ff0 Beddoe did one 2nd. dickie on 463 (with S/Ldr. H. W. Radford A406731) to Konigsberg in LM242 on 29/30-8-44.

•     463 Sqdn’s Operation Record Book F540 for
  3 1/8/44 reads as follows:- “Slightly overcast. ON ON. 16 aircraft detailed. Take-off at 15.30 hours. Returned at 19.30 hours. Led by Flight Lieutenant Langlois, our Squadron made the trip to Northern France to bomb the Flying Bomb Site at Rollencourt. Good Armour Piercing photographs were obtained, and it is believed that it developed and resulted in a very successful attack. PlO Beddoe and crew engaged on a cross-country flight crashed 10 miles E.N.E. of Kingussie. As the aircraft crashed in the mountains no information available until reached by search party.”

•     The F540 (compiled by AUS.3601 FLIGHT LIEUTENANT W. H. HODGE) for the following day, 1/9/44, reads:- “Slightly overcast to-day. NO OPS. Routine training during morning. In the afternoon a cricket match was played between 463 Squadron and 467 Squadron. Information received at 18.00 hours that bodies of P Beddoe and 5 members of his crew found at scene of crash (yesterday). All killed. No trace of navigator (F/Sgt Walker) — open parachute near crash.”

•     At this point it is worth noting that had PD259 been lost on the Vlissingen op. (see Mason & Halley) of 23/10/44, then all four aircraft lost that day would have been from either 467 or 463 Sqdn. RAAF (the latter formed from 467’s ‘C’ Flight on 25/11/43) and both based at Waddington. But, as Norman Ling (the ‘B.C. Newsletter’ editor pointed out, 26/9/93), the 4th. aircraft was LM645 of 44 Sqdn. RAF. (The 3 other aircraft lost were i.) 467’s NF989, P0-P [ E. B. Rowell]; ii.) & iii.) 463’s PB620, JO-P [ I. Dack] and NF977,JO-L[F/O C.Borscht]).

•     While visiting friends in (home Barrow-in Furness, I learned from their daughter-in-law, (who came from nearby Askam), that the W/O W. A. Graham, buried in Dalton Cemetery, had married a local (i.e. Askam) girl — her father remembered him. And I learned of a possible reason for the lack of replies to my letter to the Barrow ‘free paper’. The address of W/O Graham given to me by the cemetery authorities — ‘26, Tummers Place, Askam’ — simply did not exist. But there was a ‘Furness Place’ and I suspect that originally the name ‘Furness’, written in long hand, (see para. 8 iii. above), had been misinterpreted as ‘Tummers’ and for the same reason that I had accepted it viz, that it too was a local name).

•     From Geoff Negus (of Solihull) I knew, by July 1993, that the Aussie crew of PD259 were buried in Cambridge Cemetery. From C.W.G.C., in September 1993 I learned that PD259’s F/Eng. was buried in Rutherglen Cemetery, Glasgow.

•     An adv. I placed in the Glasgow free paper, ‘The Glaswegian,’ (my letter dated 21/10/1993), brought a reply from W/O Middleton’s daughter, Mrs. Blanche Stirling of Newbank, Glasgow, and dated 13/11/1993. From Mrs. Stirling came photos of her father including one when he was on 7 Sqdn. in 1941. The photo, published on p.12 of the October 1994 issue of the ‘Bomber Command Association Newsletter, shows W/O Middleton (3rd from left) with 3 N.Z. crew-mates including skipper, Eric Best, (now, November 1994, in a nursing home near Cambridge, UK, following a stroke).

•     As a result of the publication of this photo in the ‘Bomber Command Associations Newsletter’ of October 1994, 1 received, (among others), a letter from Eric Best’s son, W/Cdr. Bob Best AFC, RAF, who not only confirmed the identity of his father but sent me a recent photo of him in a nursing home at Upwood near Cambridge and gave me the news that his father had, as an Avro ‘York’ Squadron Commander, flown the 1,000,000th. ton of supplies into Berlin during the ‘Berlin Airlift’, I also learned from Mrs. Stirling, (who was told by her mother), that her father had lived for 10 minutes in the county hospital after the crash. Mrs. Middleton had been informed of this by one of the rescue party who’d helped to carry W/O Middleton from the crash site, and who later became her insurance agent.

•     The man on the extreme right, Trevor Goodhew (sic) had, according to Mrs. Stirling, been killed in 1943 in an air crash on his way home to New Zealand on leave. (Trevor had spent some of his WW2 leaves at the Middleton home in Glasgow.) An air-historian ‘contact’ in NZ (Arthur Arculus) sent me an obit for a ‘Trevor James Goodhue (ex RNZAF)’ who had died in July 1993. It turned out to be the same man thought of as dead 50 years ago. Arthur traced Trevor’s son in New Zealand and we were able to put Mrs. Stirling and Mike Goodhue in touch with one another. (Both had copies of the above photo).

•     Knowing the home addresses of the Aussie crew, I sent them to a friend in Melbourne, Victoria, (Lionel Potter). Lionel had very kindly offered to trace any relatives in the hope that one of them would have a (named) crew photo. Very quickly, it seemed, he traced ‘Gruff’, the brother of F/O Beddoe, who let us have a photo of his brother taken with a couple of cousins in Wales during WW2. But no crew photo. However, one was forthcoming when Lionel traced the sister of the w/op., F/Sgt Roy Dent, in North Mackay, Queensland — Mrs. Norma Elliott. Unfortunately no other names on the photo of the Aussie crew and taken presumably, in the absence of the F/Eng., on (‘passing out’?) of Operational Training Unit.

•     In a letter, dated 3/11/1994, 1 had confirmation of the identity of P1)259’s M/U gunner, F/Sgt Stan Abbott, from his cousin, Mrs. Anita Weeks of Wembley, W. Australia. This lady had responded, initially, to an ad I’d placed in a community newspaper in Cottesloe, W.A. Unfortunately, there was no response to the ads I’d placed in ‘free papers’ in either Victoria or New South Wales when I was seeking to make contact with relatives or friends of the other crew-members. The identification of Stan Abbott means that the identities of 3 of the 6 Aussie crew are known. There is also the hope that a future edition of the Bomber Command Association Newsletter, containing a photo of the 6 Aussies in F/O Beddoe’s crew, will jog someone’s memory and bring forward the identities of the other three crew members.

•     In August 1993, knowing the location of the crash-site of PD259, steps were taken to find the owner of the land in Scotland with a view to recovering part of the wreckage to be used as a Squadron Memorial. It will be appreciated that other ‘lost’ Lancasters are either at the bottom of the North or Baltic Seas, or Atlantic Ocean, and many more on the European continent and many converted to other uses after being scrapped. This was an opportunity to obtain, relatively easily, a relic from a Squadron aircraft. Eventually it was found, (by Ted Richardson — the 467/463 Association UK Hon. Secretary), that the crash-site land belonged to a Mr. Alan Macpherson-Fletcher of Mains Balavil, Kingussie.

•     Initially, Mr. Macpherson-Fletcher was averse to ‘releasing’ any part of the aircraft and for the best possible reason viz, that he felt that they (himself and other local people were, “guardians of a war site which should be left untouched in memory of The Canadians (sic), we understand, who were killed on the hill in the crash.” He also stated that, “The site is a well known local landmark and is treated with great respect by estate staff and local shepherds, game keepers and hill walkers.” Requests in the past from museums for relics from the aircraft have been denied for the reason given above. (One can only be thankful that a man of such obvious depth of feeling, and empathy, was the arbiter. -J.G.)

•     However, when Mr. Macpherson-Fletcher was acquainted with the direct link the Squadrons Association had with the aircraft he not only gave permission for a group from RAF Waddington, led by S/Ldr. J. T. Griffin, to have access to the site (as part of a hill walking expedition) but, at the request of Ted Richardson, very kindly gave his permission for a propeller blade to be removed from the aircraft.

•     On the 28th June 1994, and with the aid of ‘a 202 Sqdn. RAF helicopter, one of the propeller blades was removed and later returned to RAF Waddington.

•     On Wednesday, 31st. August 1994 — the 50th anniversary of the tragic loss of the 7 crew of JO-G, PD259 — one of its propeller blades was officially ‘handed over’ to the ‘467/463 Lancaster Squadrons RAAF Association UK’ by the RAF Waddington Commanding Officer, Gp. Capt. Geoff Simpson AFC, in his office. Receiving the blade, on behalf of the Association, were Ted Richardson and Ron Hornby of Northwich. Ron, (1588878) was the F/Eng. in the crew of F/O B. ‘Bill’ Purdy DFC A422697, RAAF, who had flown ‘ops.’ in PD259 only a few days before the crash — to Gilze Rijen (a Luftwaffe night-fighter airfield in Holland) on 15/8/1944; 2) to Stettin on 16/8/1944, and 3) to L’lsle-Adam, a German supply depot near Paris, on 18/8/1944.

•     As to why the aircraft crashed on a ‘training flight’ will, without being dramatic, always remain a mystery. Brian ‘Lucky’ Luscombe A418669, (the navigator in Jeff McKern crew), in his letter to Ted Richardson, of September. 1993, states, “we did two trips ntJO-G on the nights you mentioned (Nobby Blundell’s 463 History shows 26/8/44 to Konigsberg, and 29/8/44 — also to Konigsberg). The second one was near disaster. We lost one engine — a flak hit — over Konigsberg and had a hairy trip home.”

•     Yet Brian makes no mention of the incident, (recorded on p.164 of Nobby’s History), on the first of these two ops viz 26/8/44. Quote, “Debriefing report from Operational Record Book, 26/27.8.44. F/O McKern bombing Konigsberg. Sortie not completed. No attack. Port engine U/S. Feathered over base, all engines were satisfactory on run up, climbed to 1,000ft and 5 min after take off C,SU on port outer developed trouble, revs dropped from 2650 to 1800 and pitch went to coarse. Engineer (P/O G. J. Cook 191437) and myself tried to rectify this with pitch levers without success. Ordered Eng. to feather motor and proceeded to jettison area and jettisoned Incendiaries and returned to base.”

•     It has been suggested (Mick Holmes to me) that there may have been undiscovered damage to the engine(s) or aircraft structure resulting in a fracture of the feed lines when the aircraft was put under stress e.g. a bank. Petrol then falling onto a hot engine could have started a series of events resulting in the explosion recorded by the ROC (see para 15).

•     The old adage about ‘not being able to see the wood for the trees’ certainly rang true one day when the 467/463 Association UK Secretary (Ted Richardson) rang and asked for the phone number of David Griffin in Inverness. As I rattled off the no. to Ted he instantly spotted another coincidence. The area code for Inverness is 0463. (And if my middle name bad been Oswald or Oliver or Osbert, instead of John, then my initials would have been JOG).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - Jim George, 28 Earls Road, Whitehaven, CA28 6BE.
NOTE — There is a Postscript to this account, to be published in the Autumn 2001 Journal.
Email James George

POST SCRIPT TO THE ABOVE ARTICLE

Article published, in the Spring 2001 Journal

    It would have been very satisfying to have been able to say that personalities and events relating to the 467/463 Squadrons RAAF Reunion to celebrate the 50th anniversary of VE-Day in May 1995, brought about the identification of all of PD259’s crew. Certainly that same year did see all the crew identified and, appropriately, from an Australian source.
    However, to take things in chronological order, let’s get back to the Reunion itself. After driving from West Cumberland in very warm (by Porn standards!) weather on 7th May, we visited the Newark Air Museum the following day, the site of the former 1661 HCU Winthorpe, (where Uncle had ‘crewed up’ in June 1943), and many people were unprepared for the return to winter-like temperatures.
    From memory, (after nearly two years), on Tuesday the 9th May the Association members were conveyed by bus to 467’s first base at Bottesford (now owned by a storage company). We met Harry Bentley (467 M/U) who introduced us to Bill Purdy and Cy Borscht and later we met John Dack. Cy and John asked to copy my PD259 account to which I gladly agreed.
    At dinner that same night (9th May) in the Officers’ Mess, RAF Waddington, I sat next to Pat White (467 W/Op) of Caloundra, Queensland. Also on the same table was Bill Jackson of Smithfield, Cairns, Queensland, the B/A in Jeff McKern’s crew, and whose mother came from Dundee, Scotland.
    Talking to Pat about ‘this and that’, it turned out that he’d trained with PD259’s W/Op, Roy Dent — ‘Denty’, as Pat called him. In a letter (19.7.1995), after his return to Australia Pat recalled:- “Beddoe (PD259’s skipper) looks (i.e. from a photo) as I remember him at OTU crewing up. I may have told you that Denty and I mis-spent the previous night and were late arriving.
    The choice of pilots lay between Beddoe and Stan George (same genes?). Roy beat me to the daring young man with the cocky cap and I was left with the oldest man in the room whose cap sat square on his balding cranium.
    This is how most matters of life and death were decided in the lottery that was Bomber Command.”
    At the end of 1995, and within a few days of each other, letters from Pat White and Lionel Potter in Australia, confirmed the identities of all of PD259’s Australian crew.
    Pat’s letter (dated 7/10/95) read:- “Rear Gunner Bevil (Barney) Glover was identified by our gunners. He is back row right.” (Stan George’s gunners were Cliff Byfield and Jim Cox).
    One of the phrases in the opening to Lionel’s of 3/11/95 — ‘We have now sorted out the faces and names’ — bore out a remark I’d made, months earlier, to the effect that something will turn up one day. Lionel’s letter continued:- “The story is this. . . A neighbour of mine who is a war- widow passed on to me a bundle of their magazines called ‘The Answer’ . . . she belongs to an organisation called ‘Legacy’ that looks after wives and children of deceased servicemen and they put out this little magazine. It gave me the idea that Mrs. Glover or Mrs. Ryan could possibly be members of ‘Legacy’. I drafted a letter to ‘Legacy’ hoping it might make print, (magazine only comes out every 2nd month). Apparently someone at ‘Legacy’ was reading my letter recently and realised that their member, Roma Glover, could be the wife of Bevil Clover whom I was trying to contact. They put me in touch with Roma Glover and she gave me all the names of the six men in a photo. Roy Dent and R. H. Bevil Glover. L. to R. — David Ryan, Robert Beddoe, Frederic Walker and ‘Bud Abbot’ as she called him.”
    A question I’d asked, without success, of former 467 & 463 men was, “Who won the cricket match between 467 and 463 squadrons”, was answered via Alan Macpherson-Fletcher when he sent me a copy of part of Bill Jackson’s wartime diary:

     “Friday 1st September (1944)
    Usual routine. Stand by for special operation. 467
    played 463 cricket. We (i.e. 463 —Jim C.) won. Stand
    down till 23.59”.
    (Entries, about this time, in Bill’s diary which may ‘ring a few bells’ refer to dancing at the ‘sweat box Waddington” and seeing such films as “Top Man”; “Broadway Rhythm” and “My Friend Flicka”.
    Bill (Jackson) visited the crash site of PD259, as a guest (“he treated us like royalty”) of Alan Macpherson-Fletcher, in 1995 and puts forward another theory as to the reasons for its crash.
    Following the Reunion, Bill and his wife Daphne, had gone to France to see the D-Day landing and other WW2 battle sites and from there to Scotland. Describing the journey to PD259’s crash site, Bill has this to say (in his letter of 16/8/95):-
    “There is no doubt it was a rough trip up to ‘G’ for George a stony road up and down and finishing in the unimog (?— Jim C.). It was like riding a bucking bronco and also wet and cold. I have got to admit I had a funny feeling when I saw this smashed wreck of metal. I feel they were unlucky as there are no rocks or trees and the terrain is pretty level. I believe a belly-landing could have been carried out had they been able to see the ground. It seems the A/C wheels were down and it came in too steep with the right wing banked as the starboard inner motor is still buried with one blade of the propeller protruding only a foot or so above the ground level, and when it buried in the soft peat the wings and fuselage smashed off, and disintegrated hurling parts all over the area. I had heard it blew up in mid-air but I dismiss that theory. The wheels and undercarriage have smashed off and I believe they would have buried under the plane had they been in the retracted position, but of course I am only speculating. The night before when we flew to Konigsberg (in this very A/c.,) there was a front coming down from the Arctic and the weather was dreadful with some icing. I expect it continued and was over Scotland the next night and these poor fellows flew into it and it brought them down.”
    During this time, Bill also visited a Mrs. Margaret Dykes of Cockburnspath, Berwickshire who — “hosted many Aussies on leave during the war. Two of these were Abbott and Clover, from the crew that crashed in G for George, when on leave before posting to 463, and remembers them as happy smart lads.”
    Once the identity of the crew had been established, I set about informing relatives and those people who had helped in this ‘search’. However, my letter to Mrs. Blanche Stirling, (posted on 9/11/95), daughter of PD259’s F/Eng., was returned by the Post Office in Glasgow as ‘Not known at this address’, which puzzled me as I had been in touch with Blanche in the few months before.
    Remembering that Blanche had told me that she had a son living in Scotland, I managed to get the address of a man who could ‘fit the bill’. Here, another of thoseremarkable coincidences cropped up, the sort that, (if written into a novel), would be regarded as just ‘too far fetched’. When I mentioned, on the ‘phone, that I was researching RAAF/RAF matters he told me that he’d been in the RAF in WW2. Going into more detail about the two ‘Grahams’ I was then told that not only had he served on 518 Squadron but was on Tiree at the time and remembered the tragedy when that squadron’s W/O William Arthur Graham had been killed. It wasn’t the Mr. Stirling I wanted but he did put me in touch with Blanche’s son — the grandson of W.O. Middleton, PD259’s F/E.
    The grandson had some sad news for me — his mother had died a few months earlier, hence the P.O.’s, ‘Not known at this address.’
    It is, perhaps, fitting that the ‘base’ of the story be left in the hands of one of the ground-crew — Sid’ Baker of Rushden, Northamptonshire. Sid, (on 31/8/1944), an L.A.C. F/M of 463 Sqn RAAF, was one of last two men to see JO-G, PD259’s crew as they took-off on their fatal training flight. His letter, of 29/5/1996, gives (as far as he can remember after 52 years) details of the events of that night:
“There was no ops. on that night and why our plane JOG was picked for cross country I do not know. If it had been a crew who I knew one of us would have been sufficient, as it was what we called a sprog crew (new) two of us were on — the late Dick Powell and myself.
    They went off with no trouble. When they left we had to stay in the flight office until they returned. During the night control rang to say they had crashed, we were told they got in a down draught.”
    Could it be that Sid's reference to the cause of the crash, as a ‘down draught,’ supports Bill Jackson’s own ideas?

Jim George (9/3/1997)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - Member Jim George of Whitehaven, Cumbria.

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