Chris, have you seen the short piece about your uncle’s accident in Dave Earl’s book Hell on High Ground Vol 2? I had forgotten about this till I just checked the book. Some photos of the wreckage 2,800 ft up the mountain and detail about the aircraft’s mission. No entries from ORBs however.

Skeffington, not ham. Back in the 1970s, there were some quite hefty chunks of airframe scattered across the farmland. I would guess that it was descending on a radar talkdown and had a wrongly set altimeter. The site is almost in line with Bruntingthorpe’s south-westerly runway, about six miles out.

Are you sure about this, as After the Battle mag (I think) said that the opening sequences were filmed at an old USAAF field in Alabama. The fences look “American” but otherwise the scene looks like England.

Another thought – could the 55 on the cap indicate the 55th TFS at Wethersfield?

I have now found the reference to the Norseman crash. It is in the casualty listing in Jon Maguire’s book “Gooney Birds and Ferry Tales”. This list is often inaccurate, quoting hearsay rather than cold facts in some of the entries. Pilot was 1/t Winfield H Malone 325th Ferrying Sqn, F/Engineer M/Sgt Loyd F Cheek 320th Transport Sqn, Cpl Henry A Mazzie (possibly Mazzei) of 320th. All killed 10 July 1944 in a UC-64 “on a flight to deliver a tire and wheel for a Lockheed Hudson which was damaged earlier at Preston, Scotland. On the flight, their Norseman crashed into King Alfred’s Tower near Zeals, Wilts, Yeovil, England.”

Malone and Cheek are buried at Cambridge and the ABMC database confirms the 10 July date. Maybe Preston was Prestwick but what were they doing in Wilts so far away and where would they get the Hudson spares from? The plot thickens!

No, definitely a Norseman. I’m pretty sure they were never built by DHC under sub-contract but maybe someone disagrees?

Yes, forgot about the balloon squadron!