Leading on from Harrym's recollection of his nav sortie of 80mls to Regina I post Dad's version of a similar sortie which ended tragically
This incident was the catalyst which saw the school in Terrell start researching the work of the BFTS. My father has been across to Terrell to present them with a painting of a Harvard along with, as mention previously, the album of photographs he took during his time there.
Incident 2 :- 20 February 1943
"Then came the day when we were due to make a pupil-pilot/navigator visit to another BFTS at Miami, Oklahoma. The day dawned with a cloud base of 800ft With a weather forecast for the weather to clear a little and the cloud base to increase in height it was decided by ‘those in authority’ that we should carry out this task. My role was to fly the aircraft up to Miami and my fellow cadet, a jolly cockney (from London) Reg Flanders, was to navigate.
We agreed jointly that with the weather and cloud base so low at Terrell we must be more than vigilant and thorough with our map reading so that at all times we would be aware of exactly where we were. As we flew northwards there was no improvement in the weather. The cloud base did not clear and, if anything, the weather became worse. Checking our position we realised we were flying closer to the mountains and we were both becoming concerned. Suddenly the ground appeared ahead of us and approaching very fast! I remember quite clearly pushing the throttle forward and the control column back to climb rapidly into the cloud and can even now hear Reg swearing out loud! We climbed into the cloud and I turned the plane to return, hopefully, below cloud. We did. We circled the point at which we came out of the cloud and continued circling until, by the grace of God, we located out position. We made a joint decision to return to Terrell and, thankfully, landed safely. The next few hours back at Terrell will never be forgotten. More of our colleagues returned, there was news of a forced landing and with no news of some of our fellow cadets. Some aircraft were missing and there was a search for wreckage. Eventually we heard of a forced landing by Wright and Wall then sadly of the wreckage of the Harvards of Cockburn, Frostick, Hillier and Jensen. It was a terrible time for all 12 Course cadets who had also lost another colleague, Alan Langston, who was killed when his aircraft crashed after landing."
When I heard about this from Dad I was amazed that students would be sent out in a 800ft cloudbase with a ridge of high ground enroute. I also thank the instructor who taught my father to do a low level abort into IMC - not an easy task as well as my father's skill in carrying it out.
It is not surprising so many pilots were lost in training accidents. During my time in the RAF I went to several WW2 crash sites in the hills to see if parts could be salvaged. I remember getting several usable parts for a Blenheim off Ben Hope in Scotland
HF