410510 - Unaccounted airmen - 10-5-1941

[Henk Welting]

What caused the death of and/or what were the places of death registration for:

AC2 Leonard BEDDOE - 1401307;
LAC Henry V. CAREN - 535880 - 5 BC, 913 (Balloon) Sqn (Sutton Coldfield);
AC2 William J. DEVINE - 1342316;
AC1 George R. FARMER - 1181238;
AC2 Thomas J. GROOM - 1293047;
AC1 Ernest B. HAY - 960805;
AC1 Alfred HOWELL - 846935;
AC2 Arthur LYON - 1290932;
AC2 Arthur W. NECK - 1202697;
F/Sgt Eric A. PRIOR - 512490;
AC1 William H. STOATE - 1021273;
Sgt (Obs) Donald R. TILLEN - 745090 - 42 Sqn (Leuchars, Fifeshire), and
Cpl George WEDDLE - 808250.

Proposed aircraft losses for this day:

Tiger Moth II - R4903 - 22 EFTS - dived into ground Bottisham.
Blenheim I - L1494 - 54 OTU - crashed in forced landing at night near Castleford, Yorkshire (for this aircraft already as casualty: Sgt [Pilot] B.W. SMEATON - 1160948).

Regards and thanks for your help.
Henk.

[dennis_burke]

AC2 Leonard BEDDOE - DOAS - Age 30, reg'd Blackpool
LAC Henry V. CAREN - DOAS - Age 24, Birmingham
AC2 William J. DEVINE - DoWoIROAS - Age 19, Hull
AC1 George R. FARMER - Not found in Flight Arc ? - Age 28, Gloucester R. District
AC2 Thomas J. GROOM - KOAS - Age 26, Redruth
AC1 Ernest B. HAY - KOAS - Age 35 Marylebone
AC1 Alfred HOWELL - Not found in Flight Arc - Age 38 in Romford?
AC2 Arthur LYON - KOAS - Age 26, Islington
AC2 Arthur W. NECK - KOAS - Not evident in Q2 England Wales reigster
F/Sgt Eric A. PRIOR - DOAS - Age 33 Worcester
AC1 William H. STOATE - DoWoIROAS Age 19 Scarbro'
Sgt (Obs) Donald R. TILLEN - DoWoI Action - Age 23, Louth
Cpl George WEDDLE - DOAS - Age 24 Gloucester R. District

Not found in Flight archives means only that I could not find them.

Henk, have you stopped looking up the Flight achives?

I've missed me tea break now! and I bet someone has beaten me to it.

[Dick]

Good Morning Henk,
See Dennis has beaten me to it!!
Caren at Birmingham is right for Sutton Coldfield which is on the outskirts. The 2 at Gloucester R is Gloucester Rural as opposed to Gloucester City which is a separate area covering the city. The Rural area would include RAF Innsworth which didn't have an airfield but was a major Admin and Stores unit.
Tillen at Louth, Lincolnshire is a long way from his Unit at Leuchars, but they did have a detachment at N Coates(from Jefford RAF Sqns) and it would be right for a death there. Ross has nothing on the date for 42 Sqn in Coastal Command Losses.
Hay is at Marylebone which is a district in Central London
Dennis -enjoy your tea break!! I'm about to take "She who must be obeyed" out to Lunch.
Regards
Dick

[Henk Welting]

Thanks Dick and Dennis. Sorry Dennis that you missed your tea due to my long question and not checking Flight archives. I left this out because somebody in the past mentioned on the forum that Flight no longer listed the servicenumbers. From now on will check again Flight archives. Mea maxima culpa !
Best regards,
Henk.

[dennis_burke]

Henk,
we did discuss this a fortnight ago, sure, the Fligth magazine stops printing service numbers on or around April 1941.
http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2666

The system had not changed though, I just think the numbers of casualties increased at this time as evidenced by the longer lists this week

So, you will have to set the year on the search screen and search for the names, it will be dependant on the quality of the pdf documents and the way they have been OCR'd.

I found nearly all of those today. Here is an example:

Clearly looking for people named Smith or Jones or other common names will be a problem, but you will have the date of the magazine to go by and the rank of the person.
In the case of A. W. Neck for example.

Search for "W. Neck" between 1941 and 1941:

The preview will include:
E. S. Hawkins; L.A/C. G. S.Hendry; Sgt. P. F. Hollely; Sgt. H. I. Holroyd; P/O. P. F. Jackson; Sgt L. Jones; A/C.l C. G.Latham; Sgt. P. A. L. Lowe; P/O. W. G. Mc- Dowell; Sgt J. A. Milsom; A/C.2 A. W. Neck;L.A/C. W. R. Newton; L.A/C. W W. Parkinson; Sgt. R. G. Pascoe; A/C.2 H. P. Patterson; L.A/C.E. F. 8. Penney; P/O. D. L. Pethick; L.A/C. C. J. H. Philipson; L.A/C. J. S.E. Rawclifle: F/O. A. H.
1941 - 1606.pdf


Note that sometimes there are no spaces between the initial and the surname. There are any number of other scanning errors there but I'm sure you can find the most of them.

The information is there and free so we may as well use it.

And I was not getting at you by saying I'd missed my break, it was only a joke. Light hearted-ness.

Dennis

[alclark]

There was only a single casualty from Blenheim L1494.

May 10th 1941, “At 0330 hrs, No.1160948 Sgt B.W. Smeaton was killed when his aircraft,
Blenheim L1494 crashed and was burnt out following engine failure. No crew was carried.”

[Henk Welting]

Thanks Al for additional info on Blenheim L1494.

For Dennis: will do my utmost best checking Flight Magazine archives as the lists are growing.

Regards,
Henk.

[Rich Allenby]

From memory, i think there's a memorial in the ground of a school somewhere in the Cutsyke area of Castleford and it relates to this loss of Blenheim L1494 / Sgt Smeaton but the school has since closed down. I could be wrong though. The site would now be very close to the M62.

Regards Rich Allenby

[dennis_burke]

since found

AC1 G R Farmer DOAS Jul 17th magazine

Howell still eludes me.

[Martyn A Critchlow]

Although not shown as unaccounted Sgt (W Op/Air Gnr) James Farrar Jefferies - 144 Squadron - 759325 - accidental death - died on the Honiton to Exmouth road at Prickly Pear Cross, West Hill, Ottery St Mary, whilst travelling home on leave from Lincoln. His car tyre punctured sending the across the road to hit a hedge and overturn. Jeffries died at the scene of a fractured skull.
(Western Morning News, 14 May 1941)

Martyn