Bomb Loading Diagram Metal Detecting Find

Long shot after all this time, but did anyone find anything more about the first plane mentioned? 

https://aircrewremembered.com/millar-robert-harvey.html

I’m keen to understand anymore anyone knows about it as my great uncle George died in it. 
 

I can’t find any information on CWGC regarding any graves at Compton – at least, not at a Compton in Berkshire. There are two RAFVR graves at Hampstead Norreys, but both are of locals who presumably were brought home for the occasion.

Not very helpful, I know…

Adrian

—————-
But they could have been repatriated after the War to Canada. Any idea where to look for Canadian Air Force crash data? Or any other suggestions?

I can’t find any information on CWGC regarding any graves at Compton – at least, not at a Compton in Berkshire. There are two RAFVR graves at Hampstead Norreys, but both are of locals who presumably were brought home for the occasion.

Not very helpful, I know…

Adrian

Bomber crash site near Bucklebury

Long time after your posting but just in case you are still interested?

I know the field LINZ must have been detecting as I grew up in the house alongside. Although my parents were not living there during the war, much appeared to be known about it locally. Obviously third hand my knowledge is scant but I will write all that I know. The Wellington was indeed Canadian Air Force and I believe that the airmen are buried or were buried in Compton Church (perhaps repatriated?). This presumably was the churchyard nearest to the Hampstead Norris (Norreys) airfield. This airfield I believe came into being whilst Harwell was being upgraded from a grass runway.

There has been at least one dig for bits of the Wellington, but not sure if anything has been found in recent years. As kids we always used to find strange bits of metal in the field after ploughing. The field is currently pasture.
Where the plane came down there is still a hollow, which fills with flood water whenever the storm ditch overflows.
Interested to hear of your family living in I guess from the description, Marlston Farmhouse. I remember the elm trees obviously now gone, but the track is still there.
I can’t help with dates, but I would have thought Compton graveyard would be a good start to see if the graves are still there. Are you living locally, if not I might be able to get there at some point and have a look at the headstones.

Two other local possibilities both Wellingtons 15/12/41 15OTU R1607 Altimeter u/s flew into hillside near Hampstead Norris. 19/12/41 OADU Z8364 Engine failure feathered wrong engine which stopped. Unable to restart hit trees in forced landing Hermitage.
Need more precise locations to deduce if this is the crash site.

Anti-Pasti – have recently PM’d you!

Cheers,

NickB

NickB – Likewise!

Hi all, can anyone help me? I’ve joined this forum very recently as part of my research into a Wellington crash.
I came across this thread about a mystery bomb loading diagram found by a member in a field near Frilsham, West Berks.:) This is very significant!!! 🙂 I’ve tried e-mailing the person who first posted it but without success, administrator says no mail to be sent them..?:confused:

Let me explain what I know and don’t know..My father used to tell me about a plane crash he remembered from when he was a young boy (6 or 7 yrs old) not sure of the year but we think it was late 1943 – early 1945. He remembers it was at night and the plane was on fire as it passed very low over their farm house, his Grandmother who was scared stiff of lightening thought that’s what it was and quickly drew the curtains! The aircraft must have just missed some tall Elm trees which used to stand along the farm track before crashing into the next field. His Auntie who is still alive too also remembers the crash vividly
as she was living with them at the time. He also remembers two of his uncles, home on leave, collecting pieces of perspex from the site and making keyrings etc.

I am confident that I know exactly where the plane went in to within a 100 metre square. I know that at least some of the crew were killed, if not all, and I understand that some, if not all were RCAF.
As I mentioned at the beginning I found a thread about a bomb loading diagram which you managed to identify as one from a Wimpey, and the location of the find described is bang on the money for my site.
I know that Wellingtons were based only a couple of miles away at Hampstead Norreys HN (formerly Norris) a satellite to 15 OTU Harwell.
I have found out about several incidents involving Wellingtons local to both these airfields but none that tie into my location. I’m sure I’m looking at a Wimpey but how the heck do I find out which one she was and what caused the crash.

There’s a good chance it was out of Harwell or Hampstead Norreys doing circuits, but wouldn’t a fire be unusual? I’m struggling to find many details on OTU losses in my area, doesn’t help that I don’t have a more accurate date.
Could of been diverted on the way home to elsewhere I suppose which would make it even harder to find!

There’s a chance that I will be organizing a preliminary search of the site for any remaining wreckage later on this year if anyone is interested in helping me solve this one. I don’t know if there’s much in the ground or not but a serial No. or two might help.

If anyone has any advice for me on where to start looking for some kind of records that would shed some light on this incident I would be greatful to say the least.

Hooked and determined

Anti-Pasti – have recently PM’d you!

Cheers,

NickB

Look for a part no starting 98, it could be Mossie

Not with a bomb load of 13000 pounds it couldn’t. IIRC max for the Mossie was about 4000.

I hope that these eye-witness memories of a young lad ‘mad on aeroplanes’ may be of interest.

That’s an understatement!

Moggy

Wimpey crash site

Hi all, can anyone help me? I’ve joined this forum very recently as part of my research into a Wellington crash.
I came across this thread about a mystery bomb loading diagram found by a member in a field near Frilsham, West Berks.:) This is very significant!!! 🙂 I’ve tried e-mailing the person who first posted it but without success, administrator says no mail to be sent them..?:confused:

Let me explain what I know and don’t know..My father used to tell me about a plane crash he remembered from when he was a young boy (6 or 7 yrs old) not sure of the year but we think it was late 1943 – early 1945. He remembers it was at night and the plane was on fire as it passed very low over their farm house, his Grandmother who was scared stiff of lightening thought that’s what it was and quickly drew the curtains! The aircraft must have just missed some tall Elm trees which used to stand along the farm track before crashing into the next field. His Auntie who is still alive too also remembers the crash vividly
as she was living with them at the time. He also remembers two of his uncles, home on leave, collecting pieces of perspex from the site and making keyrings etc.

I am confident that I know exactly where the plane went in to within a 100 metre square. I know that at least some of the crew were killed, if not all, and I understand that some, if not all were RCAF.
As I mentioned at the beginning I found a thread about a bomb loading diagram which you managed to identify as one from a Wimpey, and the location of the find described is bang on the money for my site.
I know that Wellingtons were based only a couple of miles away at Hampstead Norreys HN (formerly Norris) a satellite to 15 OTU Harwell.
I have found out about several incidents involving Wellingtons local to both these airfields but none that tie into my location. I’m sure I’m looking at a Wimpey but how the heck do I find out which one she was and what caused the crash.

There’s a good chance it was out of Harwell or Hampstead Norreys doing circuits, but wouldn’t a fire be unusual? I’m struggling to find many details on OTU losses in my area, doesn’t help that I don’t have a more accurate date.
Could of been diverted on the way home to elsewhere I suppose which would make it even harder to find!

There’s a chance that I will be organizing a preliminary search of the site for any remaining wreckage later on this year if anyone is interested in helping me solve this one. I don’t know if there’s much in the ground or not but a serial No. or two might help.

If anyone has any advice for me on where to start looking for some kind of records that would shed some light on this incident I would be greatful to say the least.

Hooked and determined

I hope that these eye-witness memories of a young lad ‘mad on aeroplanes’ may be of interest.

Fascinating … Don

Linz,

You could try sending your images to the RAF Museum for identification. I did that with an item salvaged from a Halifax that was brought down near Saumur in France, and received a very prompt response (but perhaps it was a quiet day).

Brian

… an eyewitness account

… Would there be any records of the crash at Hermitage? That is very close and although a long shot worth a look into. Thanks.

I was living at Eling Common, one of a pair of cottages situated approx a quarter of a mile East of the crash site. It the 1943 date is correct, I would have been 14 years old. My father was I think, working at the RAF MU at Didcot at this time. My Mother, hearing the crash, rushed off down ‘The Common’, (The sand track leading due West to Common Barn), leaving my younger sister and I in the house, and our Grandfather aged 88 in the cottage next door. The two women, inmates of the Common Barn cottage, were good neighbours.

(My memory is that the aircraft burst into flames on impact) She came back to tell us that she could not get anywhere near the house because of the flames. She had climbed over the stile into the field on the Southwest side of the cottage, and found a parachute pack lying on the grass, which would have been thrown there by the impact.

The cottage was a bungalow, timber built and thatched. An attached workshop was filled with birch twigs and other wood, the stock in trade of Mr. Garrett, the brother of one of the dead women, who made besoms. Mrs. Chiverton, an elderly woman, and Miss Amy Playle (Or Pleyel), (Who had a sister called May). were the only two occupants of the bungalow at the time of the crash. Immediately to the North were a barn and byres containing cattle, belonging to Mr. Evelyn Burgess of Windmill Hill Farm, on the road to the south of the crash site. Further to the West were a pair of farm cottages of wooden construction, but these were far enough away from the site to be unaffected by the crash. (These cottages are still standing and can be seen from the M4).

The aircraft approached on a descending course, (Evidenced by the treetops along the lane hedge being cut off neatly by the aircraft as it fell). from the North, (along the line of what was called ‘The Green Lane’, an old cattle drove, very wide from hedge to hedge, at a guess 50 feet wide or more), and hit firstly the farm buildings and then straight into the bungalow. In the morning there was very little left to see of the bungalow.

I first saw the site of the crash the next morning, probably as we walked to school in Hermitage. The lane in those days, connected the Hampstead Norris Road to the North of the site with the Yattendon Road to the South. It is now blocked off on the south by the M4. An airman armed with a rifle approached us and said, “Halt! who goes there””)” and pointed his gun at us. It frightened me to death. We told him who we were, and he let us go on. An Articulated Queen Mary Low loader was standing on the lane near the bungalow, with bits of aeroplane on it, so they soon cleared the site. There was a horrible smell all around. My Mother told us that it was the straw in the barn burning, but I know now what it really was. After the site was tidied up, we children used to rummage about round it, and picked up whole belts of .303 ammunition. The boys from the cottages in the field were jamming them in a gate, and closing the gate on them to hold them, then firing them off with a six-inch nail hit with a stone. Even at that age I thought this was lethal, (There was a big bang, the bullet flew off at an angle, leaving the cartridge case all split down the side). I must have buried hundreds of rounds in the ground.

Of course we were told nothing of the cause of the crash, it being wartime, but a tale did get about that the WAAFS in the control tower were playing about at the time. Whether this was true or not I don’t know.

I have thought a lot about this crash, and often wondered if the width and straightness of the lane misled the crew to think it was the runway of the airfield, but this is only conjecture. The line of the cut-off treetops was there for years afterwards, and I often wondered.

As regards other aircraft crashes, I only remember one other. Aw we were going ‘over the fields’ to school one morning, we were surprised to see a Wellington lying just inside the brickyard fence, in a very good state of repair. Ir was soon removed. This was approximately half a mile west of Common Barn. The Pinewood Estate Brick & Tile Works had been taken over by the military, and was a holding depot for every sort of motor transport you could dream of, dispersed in the woods towards Clay Hill. The site was barbed Wired all round, so you couldn’t get into it.

I never heard of any crash between Frilsham and Bucklebury at any time during the War, but your label could easily have fallen off an overflying aircraft.

I hope that these eye-witness memories of a young lad ‘mad on aeroplanes’ may be of interest.

Dennis L. Adams.

Wellington crash at Commom Barn, Hermitage, Berks

Are you referring to Wellington ‘HF906’ that I referred to earlier in this thread?

Wellington crash at Commom Barn, Hermitage, Berks

Regarding the mystery data plate, a piece of research has produced this. It’s the bomb bay layout of the Wellington bomber.

I think we can finally put this one to bed – the Wimpey did indeed have bombs stacked in two tiers!

Hi Linz,

Just bear in mind that Wellington is “odds on” solely because I said that the table in my possession came from one according to the bloke I bought it off.

There has been no other proof offered yet, and I have already stated my own doubts, based on the reference to “top” and “bottom tier”, which does not seem to fit with the bomb bay of a Wellington or any other british bomber that I’m familiar with.

Having looked at the bomb bays of preserved B24s, B17s, B25 etc, they all seem to have at least three bomb stations stacked one above the other, which seems to rule them out as well!

So we are still left with a mystery item until someone comes up with more accurate information than any of us have been able to so far.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It seems as though the Wellington is the odds on favourite at the moment! I have heard that there is one (the only existing one I believe) at Brooklands so maybe a visit there would solve the mystery. As (at least) one crashed such a short distance away it could have been a memento someone picked up and thought it would be a laugh to attach it to their tractor !?! so ending up in ‘my’ field. Guess we will never know for sure.

I’m quite sure it is not from a Stirling, but I thought the Whitley did have 3 bomb bays. However, the relic certainly looks identical to the souvenir 682al showed.

DS

The bomb loading diagram looks to be from an aircraft with three bombbays (or cells). The look is typically Britsh and I don’t think RAF Liberators (Coastal Command mostly) used SBC’s (Small Bomb Containers). I agree about the Wellington possibility because of it’s divided bomb compartments as well (the practise bombs and relatively small bombs mentioned also fit into this theory). The Hampden en Blenheim had small bomb compartments. I don’t know about the Whitley but if it had then Elliott would have said so 😉

The Stirling also had three long bomb compartments but carried heavier bombs I think.

Interesting thread, any more opinions?

Cees