Gomersal Halifax Crash

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Member for

17 years 2 months

Posts: 80

Does anyone have any info or even photos regarding a Halifax that crashed in Gomersal West Yorkshire. Not sure of the full serial although I know it started JB. It was I believe on training flight and had mechanical failure causing it to crash. Thanks in advance

Original post

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 667

Hi,

Referring to Bomber Command Losses Vol. 8, by W R Chorley, I found this one:

27:12:1943
Handley-Page Halifax Mk.II
Serial No. JB788
1652 HCU

Took off from Marston Moor for a fighter affiliation exercise; while waiting for the fighters to arrive, the propeller on the port inner engine sheared off. The pilot ordered his crew to abandon, after all had complied, he force landed the Halifax at 16:15 in a field off Drub Lane, Cleckheaton.

The crew were as follows:

F/S T E Scotland RAAF (injured)
Sgt R Lewis
Sgt D Hopper
Sgt E Riley
Sgt W Weekes
Sgt W Smith
Sgt W Butler

F/S Scotland received a Commanding Officer's Commendation for his actions.

Best Regards,

Don

Member for

17 years 2 months

Posts: 80

Thanks Don, much appreiciated. Don't suppose anyone out there has any photo? Bit of a long shot but worth a try

Member for

16 years 3 months

Posts: 10

Halifax crash

Hullo Phil103
I'm fascinated with your enquiry. I was the pilot of that Halifax, JB788. There is a good website with more information at www.writerspen.com.au. I visited Gomersal in 1986, forty three years after the event. That visit sparked me to write a couple of books which included events around crash of that Halifax. "Voice from the Stars a Pathfinders Story" has been reprinted six times so it is still around. Best wishes Phil. Tom Scotland ;) ;)

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 8,464

Bloomin marvellous - straight from the horses mouth!

Tom, welcome to the forum. I hope you will stick around!

Bruce

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 1,586

Hi Tom,

Welcome to the forum, I fully agree with Bruce, but then again I am biased regarding the Halifax.

Do you have any stories, anecdotes etc. about your life with the Halifax and perhaps can clear some "myths" about the Halifax.

Cheers

Cees

Member for

18 years 1 month

Posts: 1,318

:eek: Amazing thread. A Halifax enquiry ends with the pilot himself answering. Never seen anything like it. :D

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 667

:eek: Amazing thread. A Halifax enquiry ends with the pilot himself answering. Never seen anything like it. :D

Me neither... Frankly, I'm amazed! :eek: :eek:
(I wish all my enquiries & research were this fruitful! :D )

Seriously, I think I will take a little "diversion" next time I'm out that way...

Thank you very much, Tom, and welcome to the forum!

Member for

17 years 2 months

Posts: 80

Thank you Tom

Thanks for posting on hear Tom, I am interested as I used to work on a farm on Drub Lane and from time to time we find interesting lumps of metal hear and there and the farmers brother used to tell us about the bomber crashing in the fields. I thought he'd been on the sherry to be honest and it wasn't until I went to Elvington and saw the map showing all crashes that I actually believed him. In the book preview it mentions Devils Glen but I've never heard of that place?

Member for

16 years 3 months

Posts: 10

Halifax crash

Hi Tom,

Welcome to the forum, I fully agree with Bruce, but then again I am biased regarding the Halifax.

Do you have any stories, anecdotes etc. about your life with the Halifax and perhaps can clear some "myths" about the Halifax.

Cheers

Cees

Hullo Cees
Thanks, you encourage me.
Christmas and Boxing Day are days for me when the Devil's Glen crash in 1943 comes to my mind and also a Christmas present for Hitler in 1944. I don't do much on my PC but I did idly type in the word Gomersal and was amazing how Phil's question came up on my screen.
Cees I wonder what is your main question about the Halifax?
I'm the one and only surviving member of our Pathfinder Association (out of near forty flyers) in Western Australia so my anecdotes are now pretty well tabulated in my three publications, "Voice from the Stars a Pathfinders Story", "AFTER Voice from the Stars" and "A Pathfinders Photos CD". See how you can get those on www.writerspen.com.au.
best wishes
Tom84

Member for

16 years 3 months

Posts: 10

Halifax crash

Phil hi
You asked re photos. In my visit to Drub Lane in 1986 I took several shots.
I met Drub Lane resident Brian Rhodes. He had found the locking mechanism that kept the wheels up for that heavy landing gear on the Halifax. I have a photo of that. I've put the mechanism on display several times and it has created interest. One interested aircraft engineer commented that Aerospace was still producing similar into the 1990s.
Other photos include a shot of the stone wall I took the Halifax through. (That would be a good one for Cees on this forum who is so interested int the Hali. It was robust Cees)
Other shots from 1986 show residents who had remembered my name and that I was from Oz. etc
Good on you Phil for tracking all this down.
Tom84
www.writerspen.com.au

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 1,586

Hi Tom,

Well, reason for my interest in the Halifax is that I am building a cockpitsection from scratch (see pics below) and I have a thing for all things HP built with the Halifax particular. I know the Halifax was very robust but in general Joe Public knows only about the Lancaster and Spitfire but other aircraft types are generally ignored or suffer from incorrect "myths". The best information is from the "horse's mouth" (you in this case ahum).

Can you tell us something about your training (did you fly Whitleys for instance) you opinion about the tailproblems the Halifax suffered in the early versions, performance and was there a sort of competition between Lancaster (you know, the Daily Mirror bomber) and Halifax crews?

Thanks for any insight you can give us to broaden our knowledge.

Cheers

Cees

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Member for

16 years 3 months

Posts: 10

Halifax Crash

Thanks from Tom84 the pilot of Halifax JB788 in 1943. Wonderful to meet you all with your varying intersts.
Don Bryans Midland Air Crash Research
Your getting details from WR Chorley book very helpful. Also if you want to divert to the site sometime I suggest you start on old Leeds Huddersfield road, the stone wall north of Drub Lane, look up west to top of hill, Hunsworth Pub, I skimmed the tiles off that, down into the valley, skidded across Leeds Huddersfield road then between two power poles and pulled down power cables, through the stone wall, smashed into the bank of a creek and ended adjacent to houses on Drub Lane.
Your second comments also nice to have.
Linzee (Archieraf), your quote on BBC ww2 people's war, was spot on. Well done. The small boy in that account, Bill Duncanson, now lives in my country, Oz, and we meet once a year as he loves to recount the fright he and 3 other boys got as I flew over the pub.
DCK your comments just touched the spot for me.
Phil, you asked about Devils Glen. I believe it is a continuation of the creek near Drub Lane but on the west side of Leeds Huddersfield road.
Cees, What an enthusiast you are. I'll try to answer on the Halifax shortly.
Tom[/COLOR]

Member for

16 years 3 months

Posts: 10

Halifax crash

Bloomin marvellous - straight from the horses mouth!

Tom, welcome to the forum. I hope you will stick around!

Bruce

Thanks Bruce. Good to meet you on the forum. Helpful material has surfaced.
Tom
www.writerspen.com.au

Member for

16 years 2 months

Posts: 1

BILL37

phil103
For your interest you might take a look at www.spenboroughtoday.co.uk
and the article dated Friday June 6 2003 will go a long way to explaining
how Tom and I came to meet again after sixty years.
Tom and I usually try to have our celebration drink on the appropriate
Boxing Day but this year we met on Christmas eve. Near enough.
We used to live twenty minutes away from each other but Tom has
recently moved a couple of hours drive south of Perth, but my daughter
lives near him so I have an excuse for dropping in for a beer. He`s always
in fine form.
Be in touch soon Tom about the book.

BILL37

Member for

16 years 3 months

Posts: 10

Halifax crash

Cees
You ingenious man. The cockpit construction looks so good.
I understand Bomber Command's gripe about the Halifax was that it was a low wing monoplane with a main spar constructed so that the bomb-bay was divided into two compartments. Thus it couldn't carry the big bombs the Lancaster carried. There was a tail stall problem and underpower problem for a short time before the Lancaster came into the squadrons but as flying crews later on we did well with the Halifax.
The Halifax iii was a mighty aeoroplane. The Hercules engines made a tremendous improvement in performance over the Merlin. The Hercules engines continued to be improved and a later model of the Halifax I understand could fly further and faster and carry a larger load than its competitor.
My Oz friend the late FltLt Alan Forrester DFC loved the Halifax III and he missed its robustness and crew roominess over that of the Lancasters he went on fly with 35 Squadron Pathfinders. He thought the Halifax a higher quality machine.
You asked about Whitleys, yes again a solid aeroplane that I flew in training before I flew Halifaxes. If you get a chance read my book "Voice from the Stars" about Whitleys.
best wishes
Tom
Tom Scotland
www.writerspen.com.au

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 1,586

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the valuable information you provide. This gives another view in the often one-sided opinions in books that most people take for granted and that are repeated over and over again.
Any story you wish to tell on this forum, feel free.
Cheers

Cees

Member for

17 years 6 months

Posts: 1,586

Tom,

You probably recognize this as you would have passed in on your way
towards the cockpit.

Cheers

Cees

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