Memorial to the eight crew lost in Lancaster PB565 – 15/4/45

​

A group of local people in the Isle of Axholme are coming together to erect a memorial to the eight crewmen of a Lancaster bomber which crashed near to Owston Ferry in the afternoon of 15th April 1945.

​

The pilot and flight engineer, Howard Speed and Raymond Ollerton aged 23 and 21 respectively, Wireless Operator John Hamilton 29yrs from Sydney, Australia, the Navigator Sidney Kingdon, age 23. Bert Savage aged 28 was the Nav Instructor.

The Bomb Aimer was Ted Carss who was 25 years old that day and the Mid Upper and Rear Gunners were Robert Cook and Edwin Martin age 19 and 20.

​

​

​

​

​

​

The heading photo to this page shows, left to right, Flight Sgt John William Hamilton, the Australian Wireless Operator, Flying Officer Edward Boon Carss, the Bomb Aimer and Air Gunner, Sgt Robert Bertram Roy Cook.

Although training together to form a crew, the pilot was no novice. He had 1300 hours in his Log Book and had previously been an Instructor on Wellington bombers.

​

At 3.05 pm on the 15th April '45 the Lancaster took off from RAF Sandtoft on a navigation and bombing exercise. They were briefed to fly at 10.000 ft. The weather was clear, light winds and some cloud cover.

It gained height towards Goole, turned in the direction of Scunthorpe and then turned again and set course on a long leg into Wales. The exact nature of what happened next will never be known but a possible failure of the autopilot may have caused the bomber to enter a steep dive.

​

This particular aircraft was not fitted with a later modification which meant that once a certain speed and dive angle was exceeded, it was almost impossible to recover. It would have taken the combined strength of the pilot and flight engineer heaving on the control wheel to regain level flight.

​

It was seen flying level at around 1500ft over Owston Ferry by local people however the recovery was short lived. It seems likely that the aircraft had been overstressed in the dive and recovery because having just cleared the village it was seen to pitch over into a vertical dive at such a speed that the outer wings were torn off as were parts of the rudders and tailplane.

It impacted into the riverbank between the Warping Drain and Ferry Drain and erupted into a fireball when 2000 gallons of aviation fuel ignited.

​

There were no survivors.

​

At the site today, there is no trace that such a disaster ever took place.

On the 15th April 1945 the war was drawing to a close. POW's were returning home and VE Day followed three weeks later.

All RAF Bomber Command aircrew were volunteers. By this time the high loss rate of Bomber Command crews would have been well known but non the less, they stepped forward.

​

The loss which must have been felt by the families of the crew, so close to the end of the war, is hard to comprehend.

We feel that they should be remembered together as a crew at the site where they perished in our North Lincolnshire fields. As far as we know no one who witnessed the event remains to tell their story and to ensure that they and their sacrifice are never forgotten we hope to place a memorial stone at the place where they fell along with an information board which will retell their story.

We hope to have a service of dedication on the 15th April 2020, which will be 75 years on from that dreadful day.

​

Update: November 2019.

 

The ongoing search for more information about our crew and for relatives and descendants took an amazing turn recently as connections to existing family members were discovered. We are honoured to bring forward photographs of Flying Officer Bertram Arthur Savage on the left and Sgt Edwin Horace John Martin on the right.

 

F/O Bert Savage is likely to have a distinguished Service Record, until January 1945 he had been engaged on Bombing Operations and it is likely that on having completed a tour of operations, normally thirty trips.

It may be that he had been posted to a Training Unit such as the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Sandtoft as a ‘rest’, away from the shooting war.

The photograph has been received from his daughter Patricia.

 

The photo of Sgt Edwin Martin has also been received from his family. His daughter, Jennifer was born in December 1945, eight months after her father was lost in this disaster.  It is hard to comprehend what Dorothy, his wife went through.

 

We are now able to put a face to seven of our eight crew and have family contacts for each.  Only one of our crew remains unseen, 21 year old Raymond Ollerton from the Bolton area, who was the Flight Engineer / 2nd Pilot.  His family line seems to have died out and all leads there are now exhausted. It is now known that Howard Speed the pilot and Jim Kingdon were flying in Wellington aircraft together at RAF Kinloss in the months before their move to Sandtoft.  

A Wellington crew was six so were these men an already established crew?  If we are able to look into the Service Histories of some of our crew we may find that they served at the same Stations which raises the prospect of Crew or Course photographs contained within the Station Records retained in the National Archives which might show our missing man.

 

Project News.  We are still sorting the necessary admin, Planning Permission etc before physical works can begin.  The site of the Memorial has been agreed with the Landowner. Some time has been lost while waiting for the transfer of the land from the Environment Agency to the local Drainage Board however we are pressing ahead organising materials and preparing the Information Board and are still on course to meet our April 2020 deadline.