Bomber crash in about 1918: any details?

if you want to invest in some findmypast credits you can download his service record from here

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/results/world-records/british-royal-air-force-airmens-service-records-1912-1939?firstname=claude&firstname_variants=true&lastname=mason&soldiernumber=40455

…or anything from a DH.4 upwards. We don’t even know if it was HS, BEF, Mesopotamia or anywhere else. Without at least a location/timeframe it’s a wild goose chase.

Maybe one of the bombers in here http://www.aviationarchaeology.org.uk/marg/crashes1918.htm

I wonder if it could have been 8.6.1918: prototype Handley Page V/1500 , E4104, crashed on thirteenth flight piloted by Capt. Vernon E. G. Busby “when all four engines quit at 1,000 feet altitude (300 m), possibly due to fuel starvation. Pilot attempts turn back to airfield but stalls and spins in. Four riding in the forward fuselage are killed on impact, two in rear rescued before airframe is consumed by fire, but one dies later of injuries. As aircraft was destroyed by post-crash fire, no determination could be made of cause of accident.” (from Wikipedia)

or 11 September 1918: Third prototype Vickers Vimy, B9954, crashes during testing – stalls on takeoff with full load at Martlesham Heath, bomb load explodes, pilot killed. (also Wikipedia)

From the original description it could have been this Vimy.

I haven’t found anything else so far.

It’s too non-specific: you need at best to look at his service record to pin down where he might have been.

Thanks Dave. Yes that’s the man, but what I would like to know is what was the bomber crash I mentioned in post #1? It must have been 1917 or 1918 I assume.

http://www.christownsend.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/170.html

This looks like your man and might give some other search avenues

Thanks for that fast input. A relation of his since told me the accident (not fatal to Claude) might have been pre-RAF. I’ll check on the Joshua lead.

I suspect that Mason wasn’t injured. I’d suggest looking for his AIR 79 file at the National Archives: AIR 79/383/40455

No idea of his date of death ?

The only similar name (which I imagine you have already found ?), is for a Claude Joshua Mason, who died in 1947.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2899982/MASON,%20CLAUDE%20JOSHUA