470729- Unaccounted Airmen - 29-07-1947

[Alex Smart]

Hello,

470729- Unaccounted Airmen - 29-07-1947

From Henk's List -

Nil.

From CWGC -

AUSTRALIA
STEVENS, Harold Roy - W/O - 429032 - RAAF.
Richmond War Cemetery, New South Wales, Australia.

Alex

[COL BRUGGY]

Hello,

AUSTRALIA.
429032 W/O Harold Roy STEVENS RAAF.

429032 W/O (Pilot) Harold Roy STEVENS RAAF, was killed on 29th July 1947.

He had taken off from RAAF Richmond at 3.40 pm., on a solo conversion flight in a Target Towing and Special Duties Flight Beaufighter A8-356 for an engine feathering exercise. The aircraft had been flying for approximately twenty minutes when it was seen to turn on its back and spin in from a height of approximately 4.000 feet. At about 1,500 feet, the port engine separated from the aircraft which crashed and burned at Clarendon, three miles from Richmond Aerodrome. W/O Stevens was killed instantly.

This was the last fatal Beaufighter accident suffered by the RAAF.

See:
Beaufighters In The Pacific A History of the Beaufighter Squadrons in the South West Pacific Area.
Parnell,N R.
N.P.:Author.2005.
pp.196, 277 & 325.

Col.