Date:	Monday 18 August 1941
Time:	night
Type:	Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I
Owner/operator:	125 (Newfoundland) Sqn RAF
Registration:	T4110
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	River Wye, Bishopswood, near Lower Lydrook, Gloucestershire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Charmy Down, Somerset
Destination airport:

Narrative:
Boulton Paul Defiant T4110, 125 (Newfoundland) Squadron RAF: Written off (destroyed) in an aircraft accident, 18 August 1941. Aircraft became Lost at night on AA searchlight co-op sortie, abandoned near Lower Lydbrook, Gloucestershire and crashed into the River Wye Both crew bailed out and survived - one injured, one unhurt.

Crew:
Sgt (1184466) Richard BASTOW (pilot) RAFVR - bailed out, landed OK
Sgt (751627) A.G DAVIES (A/G) RAF - bailed out injured in 'hard' landing

According to a local history website (see link #5):

"One night the siren sounded father was again in the garden, he shouted "the search lights of Coppett Hill have got him" then minutes later "he's bailed out", the search lights followed the Airman down into the trees at Bishopswood, father and the others tried to find him but failed, much to the disappointment of my mother who would have made very good use of the parachute silk, during the next day the story of what happened rapidly spread around the area, the Airman despite the darkness had managed to find his way out of the Oxlet woods and found the Chadwyns farmhouse where Daphne Jones a young girl lived with her father, without really knowing for sure if he was British this brave girl took him along a narrow footpath to the nearest house with a telephone (the Queach the home of Major Gaskill-Davies) so that he could report back to his unit to tell them he was safe, I have recently been told that his plane was recovered from the River Wye at Lydbrook".

I would be interested in the plane that was recovered from the river at Lydbrook. The only two aircraft to come down in the area were British. This was 19th August 1941- a Boulton Paul Defiant T4110 of 125 Squadron came down close to where the British Legion is", [5, Central Lydbrook, Lydbrook GL17 9PP] "Could this have been the pilot who baled out?. The other crash was the Halifax bomber which came down on 7th June 1942 on the other side of the river on the monastery side. There was also a Wellington which crashed at Brockwier. It went into the river Wye"

NOTE #1; The official file at the National Archives as Kew (see link #2) lists the incident thus: "Sergeant A G Davies: injured; Sergeant R Bastow: uninjured; aircraft accident, Defiant TH110 [sic], 125 Squadron, 18 August 1941". It is presumed that "TH110" is simply poor handwriting, with the the "4" mis-written as "H"!

NOTE #2:Some published sources (see link #6) state that Defiant T4110 took off from RAF Fairwood Common, near Swansea (not RAF Charmy Down) and came down at "Drybrook" [sic]

1. Royal Air Force Aircraft T1000-V9999 (James J Halley, Air Britain. 1997)
2. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR81/8431: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16924273
3. ORB 125 Squadron RAF for June to September 1941: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 27/922/1: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8387461
4. http://www.rafcommands.com/database/serials/details.php?uniq=N3499
5. https://www.sungreen.co.uk/Lydbrook/Wartime_memories_of_Lydbrook.html
6. https://air-britain.com/pdfs/military/Crashes_Wales_and_West_Midlands.pdf
7. https://www.bombercommandmuseumarchives.ca/canadaairwar/canadaairwar1941.pdf
8. https://www.aviation-links.co.uk/Gloucestershire%20Aircraft%20Accidents.pdf
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Charmy_Down#Royal_Air_Force_use
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._125_Squadron_RAF#Second_World_War
11. https://www.ukcitymap.com/british-legion-club-opp-info-1600GL3113.html

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
17-Aug-2020 22:33	Nepa	Added [Operator]
26-Nov-2021 13:57	François MATHELART	Updated [Registration, Narrative]
22-Apr-2022 09:13	Nepa	Updated [Narrative, Operator]