The Mystery of Stirling LK446

[Pilotdreamer]

Can any body shed any light on what could have happened to Stirling LK446 which was with 1657 HCU at Stradishall.On the night of the 23rd August 1944 LK446, piloted by P/O Hesketh,she took off for a planned night cross country exercise.LK446 and her seven man crew were never heared of again.After an exstensive search no trace of the aircraft was found.I can understand on opperations aircraft were lost without trace but on a training mission over land seems difficult to understand.Does any body have any ideas?

[K4KittyCrew]

Hi mate, form The Stirling Story by MJF Bowyer, page 386 ............

LK446 10 Maintenance Unit 13th November 1943, AK-D / 1657 Conversion Unit 4th June 1944, Failed To Return 23rd / 24th August 1944 from a night exercise, crashed at sea?
Additional details by Chorley's volumes are listed below.
Footnote - If it crashed on land and if so, mountains can hide any evidence for many a year ............ as we have witness with other aircraft findings.
Cheers,
John

[GuyMassey]

Night flying was fraught with danger. From Shepherds Grove, in poor visability, in wartime blackout conditions, a simple navigational error would very quickly put the aircraft out over the North Sea. Not being a front line aircraft she probably was not equipped with up to date navigation aids (H2S etc.) An inexperienced crew could simply have got caught out, the pilot was only a single striper, so may not have had much experience and may have flown a reciprocal course in error. It is all just so much conjecture. It was not unknown for returning crews to overfly the whole country and crash in the Irish sea when the ran out of fuel. Climbers and fell walkers would have stumbled on it by now had it come down in the mountains.

[Pilotdreamer]

So, it,s more than likely she fell in the sea.Is it possible that some kind of record exists as to what course this night cross country exercise should have been?And what about radio contact.Surely if your low on fuel and lost you try to send out a call for help.In 1944 the navigation systems were far better than at the beginning of the war.I find it rearly hard to believe that you can lose a Stirling and her crew.It would be also interesting to see how the Captain and his Navigator were rated.Obviously there are so many factors involved here.

[GuyMassey]

The first picture in the Photo section on the home page is of a 1658 Heavy Conversion Unit Stirling from 1944. My father flew in MkIV's with 299 squadron from Shepherds Grove on SOE operations over Norway. There is a little information here: http://twinbases.org.uk/photos/associat ... s/sgp1.htm

In 1944 nav aids were being used, but they could be unreliable and probably were not fitted to an old HCU aircraft. The old valve radio sets were also subject to interference and breakdown. Accidents at training wings and conversion units were all too common and sadly aircraft quite frequently went missing due to navigational error. One of my uncles died when he flew into a hillside in his Wellington, whilst training in Northern Ireland. It is all too easy think of navigation in modern terms. Back in 1944 exercises would still be flown by dead reckoning, imagine doing that in blackout conditions with no lights on the ground, in poor visibility, in an unfamiliar aircraft and with an inexperienced crew. Then throw in bad weather and poor communications and possibly marauding enemy night-fighters and trigger happy flack batteries, The thought terrifies me and I am a pilot!!! I can well understand how this aircraft may have flown out to sea never to be heard of again.

Good luck with your search, I don't think HCU's kept the same detailed records as operational squadrons (ORBs), but it may be worth inquiring of the National Archives at Kew, you never know, you may strike it lucky.

[Pilotdreamer]

The thing is,from research it seems that the night of the 23rd 24th was clear and warm over the SE of the UK,so the crew would have little problem with picking out bearings from the ground,What I would like to know is how long and what course a night cross country exercise would be.If they were heading back to Stradishall they would have to flown in a South Westerly direction across low country over RAF Rougham and RAF Chedbrugh before reaching Stradishall.Unless some ex 1657 aircrew can tell us what course LK446 was most likly to have followed I assume this will always stay a mystery.

[GuyMassey]

Just checked my Dad's logbooks and his night flying cross-country exercises varied from 1hr 50mins to 5hrs 10mins. These were from Stradishawl in Wellingtons, the Stirling exercises were from Chedburgh and were all around 2hrs 30mins.

[PAFG]

Navigation was still a tricky business, even in 1944. Young men, usually tired and often under stress, bombarded daily with vast amounts of information, might nod wisely yet still make the same basic errors they'd been warned against repeatedly. Tee Emm, Navigation Bulletins, Accident digests etc. stress the same issues throughout the war.

A Nav Bulletin from December 1943 provides 'a recent example' of a 'chapter of errors' - The Lincoln-Lille Bullseye - or, 'Red on Blue'. The crew of a Lancaster were detailed to carry out a Bullseye Exercise including a visit to a bombing range approximately 70 miles from base. 'Gee went u/s after half an hour's flying and loops proved to be unreliable'.

Navigation as far as the bombing range had been good ... and then the aircraft continued on the last 3 legs of the Bullseye. The crew noticed nothing wrong until ETA Base, when they descended to 2,000 feet through 10/10 cloud with nav lights on. They were coned by searchlights and fired at. They took evasive action and fired the colours of the day. The DR Compass toppled and the Pilot switched to setting. The Navigator stated in his log book that they thought they'd become entangled with Lincoln's defences. There were no further entries in the Nav Log until the aircraft landed 3 hours later.

Subsequent enquiry found that the pilot had flown three reciprocal courses, putting the a/c in the Lille area. A QDM was then called for and received, but flown using the DR Compass without checking the repeaters after the reset. The repeaters were later found to be under-reading by 90 degrees. 15 minutes later the a/c was fired on again (still at 2,000') by the defences of 'a major city'. The Captain climbed to 12,000' and called for a fix. This put the a/c 20 miles north of Antwerp. Further fixes plotted the a/c flying further east, to 50 miles short of Munster.

Finally, the crew set course by astro and a small pocket compass (itself subject to strong deviation in the a/c). They eventually reached the East Anglian coast and were homed from there to a nearby airfield.

As regards weather and visibility - Tee Emm mentions a crew returning from a night X-country livid that Southampton had fired on them. It was established later that they'd been over Cherbourg. They'd crossed the Channel twice - on a clear, moonlit night - without noticing it.

Cheers,

Richard

[Pilotdreamer]

These are rearly amazing storys and give some idea of how these young men did not seem to take much notice of the dangers that flying involved.During basic training does any body know how a pilot was deemed suitable for bombers or fighters for example.

[wayne]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for those interesting stories. It just shows how difficult things were back then, and how easily a flight could get into difficulty.
The poor Navigator's certainly had their hands full during a flight.