ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 172915
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| Date: | Wednesday 31 May 1944 |
| Time: | 17:15 LT |
| Type: |  Short Stirling Mk III |
| Owner/operator: | 1654 HCU RAF |
| Registration: | |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 7 / Occupants: 7 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Co-operative Farm at West Thickley, Shildon, County Durham -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | RAF Wigsley, Lincolnshire |
A Stirling bomber on a training flight from Lincolnshire caught fire, broke up and crashed on the outskirts Shildon, County Durham, killing the entire crew. The fuselage came down on the Co-op farm. The pilot was 27 year-old Pilot Officer Stanley Raymond Wilson of Newcastle. According to an eyewitness report:
"Vincent Horan remembers the accident happened at about 5pm on May 31, 1944. A short-nosed Stirling bomber on a training flight from Lincolnshire caught fire and crashed onto the Cooperative farm, killing the entire crew.
“I was only five, but my brother was an office boy at the railway works and he saw it circling overhead before it crashed,” says Vincent, who now lives only 400 yards from the crash site.
“We ran over Dabble Duck – it was then a fur factory – and when we got there, there was quite a crowd. I remember these two ladies and they said ‘they are carrying the bodies out in bags’.”
The pilot was 27-year-old Pilot Officer Stanley Raymond Wilson, who left his parents and his wife, Marguerita, in Newcastle, where he is buried, although the rest of the crew were Canadians.
Post-war, the Jubilee Estate was built on the farm’s fields. It is said that the Canada link caused one of the streets to be named Maple Avenue, although practically all the estate is named after trees – magnolia, jasmine, fir, pine tree, larch, lime etc – so perhaps it is coincidence."
Crew killed were:
Pilot Officer Stanley Wilson, 27, of Newcastle;
Flight Engineer Sergeant Donald Curtis, 23, of Ebbw Vale, Wales;
Navigator Sergeant Nathaniel Crawford, 30, from Larne, County Antrim;
Bomb Aimer Flying Officer John Brooks, 36, of Salford;
Wireless Operator Sergeant Fred Bates, 21, of Blackpool;
Air Gunner Sergeant Thomas Parr, 27, of Droylsden, Manchester;
Air Gunner Sergeant Walter Lawton, of Liverpool.
Sources:
1. http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/10548713.The_day_the_plane_fell_from_the_sky/
2. http://www.ne-diary.bpears.org.uk/Inc/ISeq_36.html
3. [LINK NOT WORKING ANYMORE:http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/yourmemories/8963973.Landlord_Lancaster_was_larger_than_life/?ref=rss]
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 12-Jan-2015 15:19 | Dr. John Smith | Added |
| 20-Aug-2018 16:50 | Davepot | Updated [Operator] |
| 27-Dec-2018 21:56 | Nepa | Updated [Operator, Operator] |
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