Information sought on 1950's Anson crash

Nimgen – thanks for posting the circumstances surrounding the crash, nice to know there were no casualties.

Mothminor – that link is excellent thank you. Judging by the comments there seemed to be quite a lot of confusion about the actual identity of the aircraft in the pic, but the last comment seems to have narrowed it down to PH812 judging by the date.

I should add that the reason for my interest is that I’ve been compiling a list of post war casualties at Bassingbourn, so as to incorporate a ‘Roll of Honour’ in the museum, and the Anson incident was one that I was struggling to clarify as regards to the crews fate.
Cheers :applause:

Rob

All I can offer is that there were no casualties and the sequence of events of the crash.

Last Take-Off” 1950-1953, Compiled by Colin Cummings quotes
“29 Dec 53, PH812 Anson C12, 231 OCU, Crashed off Canvey Island, Casualties 0
The gyro toppled twice whilst climbing and after a further 20 minutes the RT failed. The pilot began a decent through cloud, breaking out at 2000 feet and finding that he was over water and out of sight of land. On checking his compass it was found that the wrong course had been set on the grid ring and so he calculated his likely position and reset a course maintaining VFR. The port engine oil pressure then fell to zero and the engine was feathered. It was un-feathered later to help gain height before being feathered again. The starboard engine then gave trouble and the pilot feathered this and restarted the port engine, but after a few minutes this failed. As the aircraft was now within sight of land the pilot made a ditching as close to shore as possible.”

Is there any connection to this article – http://www.canveyisland.org/page_id__1585.aspx
The date as given in the comment at the bottom of the page seems to tie in exactly. I’ve tried a bit of photoshopping to enhance the image and it appears a possibility for the serial (definitely a PH at least).