Date:	Friday 2 August 1940
Time:	night
Type:	Fairey Battle Mk I
Owner/operator:	12 OTU RAF
Registration:	L4971
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Ewelme, 2.5 miles NE of Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Benson, Oxfordshire (EGUB)
Destination airport:

Narrative:
Fairey Battle Mk.1 L4971: Delivered to 185 squadron 6/2/1939. Transferred to 63 Squadron 4/8/1939. Then to 12 OTU (Operational Training Unit) 18/4/1940.

Written off (destroyed) 2/8/1940: Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth, a racing motorist, aviator and prolific collector of veteran cars and aircraft was killed when Fairey Battle L4971 of No. 12 Operational Training Unit RAF Benson crashed into a hill during a solo night flying exercise. According to the following extract from Shuttleworth's biography:

"When the Second World War broke out Shuttleworth joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR). He reached the rank of pilot officer and was selected to join the Aircraft Crash Investigation Branch once he had completed his RAF flying training, and to achieve this in August 1940 he was training with No. 12 Operational Training Unit RAF at RAF Mount Farm, Oxfordshire. In the early hours of 2 August 1940 he took off in a Fairey Battle light bomber for a cross-country training exercise, but it crashed into a hill at nearby Ewelme and he was killed.

Richard Shuttleworth is buried in the Shuttleworth family plot at the church of St Leonard in Old Warden."

Per the official CWGC record, the pilot of Battle L4971 was:

Pilot Officer Richard Ormond Shuttleworth, RAF VR (Pilot, Service number 76022, aged 31) - killed on active service 2/8/1940

The reported crash location of Ewelme is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire, 2.5 miles (4 km) north-east of the market town of Wallingford at approximate coordinates 51.621°N 1.071°W

1. Royal Air Force Aircraft L1000-L9999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983)
2. The Battle File (Sidney Shail, Air Britain, 1997 p.139)
3. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 81/2504: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16471838
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Battle#Accidents_and_incidents
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ormonde_Shuttleworth#Aircraft
6. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2706146/RICHARD%20ORMONDE%20SHUTTLEWORTH/
7. https://www.shuttleworth.org/richardshuttleworth/
8. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/22202829/richard-ormonde-shuttleworth
9. https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/september-1940/16/late-richard-ormonde-shuttleworth
10. http://aircrewremembered.com/shuttleworth-richard-1.html
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewelme

The grave of Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth (1909-1940) in the churchyard of St Leonard's in Old Warden in Bedfordshire:

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
22-Oct-2020 22:48	Dr. John Smith	Added
25-Oct-2020 14:41	stehlik49	Updated [Operator, Location, Operator]