incident at snaith 1943

could the following be relevant ?

saturday 19 june 1943

ops le creusot

huge explosion in the snaith bomb dump area

clearing up the site took about a month and a number of armourers were ‘mentioned in despatches’ .

the bomb dump itself was redesigned

20 OTU Wellington HZ262

the facts are more or less as indicated above .

Cpl M Lucas WAAF certainly deserves mention – a nursing orderly who happened to be visiting the Stotfield Hotel and witnessed the a/c hit the sea about 250 yds from the shore . she swam out to the site , fully clothed , despite danger to herself , and was the first rescuer to reach the a/c . then she turned her attentions to aid a civilian . Chorley indicates Cpl Lucas was recommended for the British Empire Medal – i wonder if this recommendation was successful ?

i will investigate on line

R9366

been following this ronnie waite story with interest !

i don’t have a picture of R9366 but my information of this particular a/c is as follows :-
R9366 10/76 CF/76/1658 HCU Training 18.10.42 . t/o Riccall for night flying practice . Touched down at 20.20 but immediately ground looped as a tyre burst . Both pilots , Sgt DA Gold and Sgt LJ Cursley later joined 76 Sq and were killed quite early on in their tours ; Sgt Gold FTR ops Berlin 17.01.43 Halifax DT569 and Sgt Cursley ops Berlin 29.03.43 Halifax DT563 (same raid as F/Lt JH Wetherly DFC MID FTR) .

Ronnie Waite’s book ‘DEATH OR DECORATION’ p 119 indicates he was transferred to 1658 HCU Riccall early in september 1942 ‘with squadron leaders dobson and calder’ which goes someway to explaining his involvement with R9366 .

This a/c arrived from 10 Sq 29.03.42 and flew two operations with 76 Sq as MP-U . Transferred to 76 Sq CF and then 1658 CU .
10 Sq . Ops Channel Dash (Operation Fuller) S/Ldr Thompson , pilot . Stick of bombs dropped after a momentary sighting through a break in clouds .

jettisoning

squadron leader ron waite

can this gentleman be the same ronnie waite who wrote ‘DEATH OR DECORATION’ published by newton publishers in 1991 ? he was posted to 76 squadron at middleton st george in january 1942 .

if so , it is a co-incidence that i was just rereading this book when i noticed the name in your note .

it seems quite ironic that his survival was based on his unfortunate removal from operations .

jettisoning

Halifax LV857
Often used photograph of LV857 eg ‘The Nuremberg Raid’ Martin Middlebrook caption :-

LV857 was photographed when new before delivery to 51 Sq at Snaith . Sgt Jack Binder and his all NCO crew , on their third operation , set out for Nuremberg in this a/c but were all killed when it was shot down near Fulda .

in Appendix 4 there is an additional note that the actual crash site was at Schwarzbach , 13 km east of Fulda .