Personal Accounts
Personal accounts of the fateful day, January 2nd 1944:
Report by Keighley News, Oakworth correspondent Jean Binney:
THE OAKWORTH, TEWITT HALL WOOD WELLINGTON.
On the night of January 2nd, 1944, the main force of bomber command was once again out in strength; that night, 383 Aircraft were on their way to the big city, Berlin. 27 Lancasters were not to return to there bases in England, most were lost in the Berlin area, some seven and half percent of the attacking bombers missing. Eighty two houses were destroyed and thirty six people were killed, Just another night for the crews of bomber command. The Operational Training Unit, home of the O.T.U. was based eight miles north west of Newark. This was at Ossington, and it was bases like these, flying the Vickers Wellington, that all operational crew passed through on their way to squadron service.
At 20.00 hours, Wellington BK387 lifted off from the Ossington runway on what should have been just another training flight of four hours duration. Many local people around Oakworth will tell stories of what they saw and heard on that fateful night when the pilot, Flight Sergeant Ernest Glass, brought the aircraft down through low cloud and subsequently crashed into the hillside at Tewitt Hall wood. Six young lives were lost in a instant. The crew of BK387 were all from Canada. If they had completed their training they would have joined one of the 16 Canadian Bomber Squadrons in Yorkshire. By the time the war ended, these squadrons had flown some 40,822 sorties, they had lost 814 Aircraft and more than 3,500 Aircrew were killed or missing. The total Bomber command losses were a staggering 55,000 men.The remains of the aircraft were cleared away and little remains today at the site of the crash except for the burnt and broken trees which tell their own story. The crew were all buried at Stonefall Cemetery, Harrogate, near Leeds, England along with many of their fellow countrymen, all of whom paid the supreme sacrifice. All are buried on section C, row H, graves 11 to 16.
Peter Sharp, June 2002:
In the autumn of 1943, when I was eight years old, my Father, a tenant farmer moved from a small farm to Tewitt Hall Farm.
The house was large and that Christmas was full of people, apart from work people who lived with us we had cousins staying for the holidays.
On the night of Jan 1944 after we children had gone to bed there was a huge crash followed by a explosions, my Father went to investigate and found that a Wellington bomber had crashed into the quarry about half a mile from the farm. A few neighbours were there, but there was nothing they could do for the crew. All but one were dead and the other died soon after. (Which one we don't know)
Early the next morning guards were posted and everyone was kept away. A detachment from Glasgow was billeted in our coach house until the wreckage had been cleared away. My cousin and I managed to sneak past the guard but were soon spotted and sent packing.
When we went to look later we could see that the plane had approached from the south west leaving a wing in the next field, the Wellington bomber had flattened about 12 yards of the wall, and chopped off the trees as it crashed into the quarry tip.
For years afterwards bullets and pieces of fuselage could be found at the site of the crash.
Maureen Wilson:
At the time of the crash I was 10 years old and lived at 47 North St, Haworth with my parents, my father James was a Air raid warden, I remember that on the night of the crash we were awakened by a Mr Dent who lived next door at No. 49, he was quite an old gentleman of about 80 years , he probably awoke my father just because he was a air raid warden, I remember him saying that he thought it was a large house on fire between Oakworth and Oldfield. My recollection of the fire was that he could not see it from our bedroom window, (at that time in 1944 there were no flats or houses built on the Baptist Chapel field to obscure our view) It looked as if it was a large house on fire from top to bottom with flames reaching up into the sky, the day after we were told it was a plane crash not a house fire. We were not allowed to go and see the site of the crash for nearly a week, by which time the authorities had removed the remains of the aircraft except for pieces of Perspex from the planes windows, most of the school children from the surrounding districts went to see the crash site, and Perspex pieces were made into wings, small hearts and other little shapes by the boys for the girls to wear as souvenirs. I did not keep any of these objects, nor do I know of anyone who has done so.
John Bentham:
I am just writing a few words on the airplane crash in the woodland of Tewitt Hall Farm in Oakworth. All can remember of that night was of this aircraft getting lower and lower in the sky, shortly after it tried to land in a field of 20 acres opposite the Grouse Inn public house, this pub had a outside toilet of course, the landlord left the door open as he did his business as all the customers had all gone home. He told me the day after that he sat there frightened out of his skin as he could see the plane heading straight for his loo. Luckily for him the plane managed to get over the top, then landed in the field behind before going through a wall and into the plantation of trees, It actually touched down half way across the field, bumped twice before going through the wall. All the crew was killed immediately, no one would suffer, thank the lord. I went and visited the site the next day, was not a pleasant sight, the plane had broken into three or four different parts, engines here and there, fuselage in a different place, not a pretty sight, police fire engines and aircraft personal were all there doing whatever was required of them, later that week I visited the site again looking for souvenirs but the only thing I found was a lump of Perspex which I took to work and made into about 3 rings, also a spent bullet which was made into a cigarette lighter which my father used to use for years. Trees all around were covered in holes which had been made by bullets exploding, sorry I can't remember much as I was only about fourteen then and as time goes by you forget don't you.
P.S. I only lived then one field away from the place where the plane came down.
We would like to thank all the people above who supplied their personal accounts of the days surrounding the crash.