In the previous post, I explained how the aircraft being used for training by Bomber Command were often very poor machines from the pilots’ point of view and in a very poor state:
Poor aircraft then, and, from Old Nottinghamian, Jack Sweeney’s point of view, it had also been a very poor decision when Ashbourne in Derbyshire was selected as the place to construct the airbase where he was to do his training in 81 OTU.
In the first place, the building of RAF Ashbourne was actually against regulations as it was higher than the ceiling height for the construction of airfields:
And everyone was well aware of the prevailing weather around Ashbourne. Driving rain, rain, sleet, snow, drizzle, fog and mist. As I write now, even the tripadvisor website, trying to attract tourists to Ashbourne, offers “Stunning walks & scenery – whatever the weather”:
And the 1940s had a lot worse weather than we experience nowadays.
Ashbourne, of course, has the nickname “the Gateway to the Peak District”. And that says it all. If you have lots of peaks, you should be thinking about whether that is the best place to allow inexperienced young men to fly around, often at night, in aircraft without radar aids of any kind, and only the most rudimentary of weather forecasting.
Only two or three miles north of the airfield there are steep slopes, rising up to extensive high land masses around Fenny Bentley and Kniveton. Given how many foggy nights used to occur in that area, such countryside is just not acceptable for pilot training.
Jack Sweeney was killed on January 31st 1944. Ironically he wasn’t flying from Ashbourne but from a satellite airfield nearby called RAF Tilstock. Like so many of the hundreds of airfields constructed in Britain at this time, Tilstock has been rather neglected over the past and could do with a little light weeding perhaps:
In the notes I made during my researches, I described the countryside around Tilstock as “quite hilly country, very variable, lots of steep slopes”, so it’s not too different from the nearby Ashbourne area.
Sergeant Sweeney took off from RAF Tilstock in an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mark V, serial number LA 765:
He crashed about 30 miles away near Hardiwick between Caverswall and Dilhorne, a tiny village situated in what looks to me to be quite a hilly landscape, perhaps 7 or 8 miles north east of Blythe Bridge. When our family all settled into our 1959 Ford Anglia saloon for the long trip from Derby to Wigan in the pre-motorway years of the early 1960s, Blythe Bridge was a familiar and exciting landmark for all of us, It meant that we were a third of the way there and only had 70 miles to go, unless, of course, in those pre-motorway years, we got lost:
John Knifton 
It is my recollection that weather was worse in the 1940s, although I do remember tar melting in London streets – was it 1946?
I don’t know, Derrick, but I did find this webpage which might help
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1477-8696.1947.tb00715.x/abstract
Thanks, John. It did help. It was 1947 following the winter of 1946 which was very cold indeed. In that winter I was staying with grandparents in Durham, stepped out of the back door, and disappeared under the snow. In the ’47 summer I got melted tar on my clothes when playing in the street.
Weather was another drastic cause of casualties during the war But I’m finding it sad to see the condition of Tilstock. I always thought the UK preserved their history.
I think that for political reasons, it was decided by Churchill at the end of the war, that Bomber Command were an unacceptable bunch having killed so many poor innocent Germans over the previous few years. Bomber Command veterans received no campaign medal, for example. Connected with that sudden change of opinion about Bomber Command was the failure to preserve any bomber bases, or indeed, very many of the aircraft. Churchill just wanted them all forgotten. I suppose it’s a bit like Vietnam veterans who did their job bravely but who then returned to find a lot of American people who were hostile to them.
That’s my own personal opinion, really. I suppose I’m with Arthur Harris, the man in charge of Bomber Command, who said in March 1945 “I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.”
All so true, John, I am just surprised to hear someone be realistic about Churchill. For me, the Vietnam vets are a very sore subject – what they went through when they got home was unacceptable!!
Thanks for sharing this John. It helps in understating how dangerous training was for RAF and RCAF crews.
Thanks Pierre. This series of shortish posts come from my researches about the boys who left the High School and were then killed in the war. Nobody has ever bothered with them up to now, and I just feel that that is wrong .They could not have given us more than they gave.
I agree with what you are doing.
Poor weather, poor flying conditions, poor landscape and poor obsolescent aircraft. That’s a recipe for disaster in my books. Thank you for highlighting the careers of these aircrews John. The likes of Jack Sweeney should be remembered, and you do him and his comrades a great service in these posts.
Thanks very much. As I said above, I am currently researching the Nottingham High School boys who died in WW2 but, as you can imagine, it’s been a very long job. The first big step was to identify them. The School’s War Memorial lists 82 but I’ve got it up to 105 so far, using the trusty Old Internet.
You are doing a terrific job John. I look forward to the next post.
So many of these young men cut their teeth in inadequate machines, it’s a wonder any managed to get through to operational units. I think a ‘little weeding’ is definitely needed there!
The statistics are horrendous. In a school of 1,000 pupils that would be 12 children killed by the end of each year, with 150 dead by the end of each 6 year cycle.
They really are staggering figures John and put like that really gives it some perspective.
Were you living in Derby ? Thank you for this very interesting post and the photos. 🙂
My pleasure. I used to live about 10 miles south of Derby. Ashbourne and the area of the crash is to the north west, perhaps 20-30 miles.
How sad to see such neglect in this historic place. Another history lesson from you, John, one that I really enjoyed. Thank you!! 🌸
My pleasure. Glad you enjoyed it. The Government have done very little to preserve any of these old airfields. I suppose they could argue that it was impossible because there were hundreds of them but I do think that they could have picked just half a dozen of them and made sure that they were looked after.
And I agree, John!
Bomber Command veterans did get campaign medals for service in Europe. They could qualify for the Aircrew Europe Star for service before D Day and the France and Germany Star thereafter.
Since 2013 they have been able to have a Bomber Command clasp to put on the ribbon of the 1939-45 Star too.
I meant a specific medal for service in Bomber Command. According to Wikipedia the Aircrew Europe Star is for anyone who participated in operational flights over Europe from bases in the United Kingdom and there has to be 60 days of operational flying which sounds an enormous amount to me. The France and Germany Star is for anybody not just Bomber Command. Granted a Bomber Command clasp was made available but only from February 26th 2013 onwards which could be interpreted by a cynic to ensure that most of them were dead and could not therefore apply.
The biggest sticking point is the paperwork to prove all this. My Dad only had “Fit for aircrew ” written on his records after a medical examination, because the squadrons are never listed nor the bases they served at, as far as I was told. The Ministry of Defence said that “Fit for aircrew ” was no proof he had ever been in aircrew. RAF paperwork is frequently like this, although I admit, that is a different issue.
I believe that this plane crashed in my field here in Dilhorne. I would love some more information in this if possible
Thanks. Stephen Ryder
Hello there!
I am glad you enjoyed my blog post. The websites I used most about Dilhorne were
http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/pages/midlands/midlandsla765.htm
http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/category/crash_sites/midlands/
The best one was on youtube…
Another aircraft crashed in Dilhorne during the war . One website is
http://www.caverswall.org.uk/local-history/wellington-bomber-r1538-january-1943/
but a more detailed account I found is……
Vickers Wellington Mk.IC R1538. No.28 OTU January 30th 1943 The sound of aircraft flying overhead at all times of the day and night was a daily wartime experience. However, just before before 3 am on the 30th of January 1943 the residents at Captains Barn Farm on Leek Road were woken by the sound of loud aircraft engines followed by a horrible thud coming from a nearby field. R 1538 had been assigned to No 28 Operational Training Unit, 93 Group, B Command. The crew were undertaking a long duration night navigation exercise and had taken off at 7.30 pm. This was one of the final stages of the training programme and the crew would have been looking forward to their transfer to an operational bomber squadron. The exact route flown by the aircraft is not known but it certainly encountered very poor weather as it flew over North Staffordshire. Flight in cloud requires the pilot to concentrate on the instrument panel. Without the ability to see the ground the crew were totally dependant on the instruments to indicate the direction and height of the aircraft. It appears that in this case the pilot did not realise that he was flying dangerously low and the aircraft struck the rising ground 1.5 miles north east of the crossroads at Weston Coyney. One of the survivors expressed the view that the aircraft altimeter was either faulty or that it had been accidentally set to the wrong datum at some stage during the flight.
The Crew of R1538 Pilot : Flt Sgt C.A. Reynolds R.A.F injured
2nd Pilot : Flt Sgt FW Bull R.A.F. injured
Observer : Flt Sgt T. Butterley R.A.F.V.R. killed
W/Operator : Flt Sgt R.R. Clarke R.A.F.V.R.
A/Gunner : Flt Sgt A. Priest R.A.F.V.R. killed
I am glad you enjoyed my blog post. The websites I used most about Dilhorne were
http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/pages/midlands/midlandsla765.htm
http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/category/crash_sites/midlands/
The best one was on youtube…
Another aircraft crashed in Dilhorne during the war . One website is
http://www.caverswall.org.uk/local-history/wellington-bomber-r1538-january-1943/
but a more detailed account I found is……
“Vickers Wellington Mk.IC R1538. No.28 OTU January 30th 1943 The sound of aircraft flying overhead at all times of the day and night was a daily wartime experience. However, just before before 3 am on the 30th of January 1943 the residents at Captains Barn Farm on Leek Road were woken by the sound of loud aircraft engines followed by a horrible thud coming from a nearby field. R 1538 had been assigned to No 28 Operational Training Unit, 93 Group, B Command. The crew were undertaking a long duration night navigation exercise and had taken off at 7.30 pm. This was one of the final stages of the training programme and the crew would have been looking forward to their transfer to an operational bomber squadron. The exact route flown by the aircraft is not known but it certainly encountered very poor weather as it flew over North Staffordshire. Flight in cloud requires the pilot to concentrate on the instrument panel. Without the ability to see the ground the crew were totally dependant on the instruments to indicate the direction and height of the aircraft. It appears that in this case the pilot did not realise that he was flying dangerously low and the aircraft struck the rising ground 1.5 miles north east of the crossroads at Weston Coyney. One of the survivors expressed the view that the aircraft altimeter was either faulty or that it had been accidentally set to the wrong datum at some stage during the flight.”
The Crew of R1538 Pilot : Flt Sgt C.A. Reynolds R.A.F injured
2nd Pilot : Flt Sgt FW Bull R.A.F. injured
Observer : Flt Sgt T. Butterley R.A.F.V.R. killed
W/Operator : Flt Sgt R.R. Clarke R.A.F.V.R.
A/Gunner : Flt Sgt A. Priest R.A.F.V.R. killed