Researcher seeking help with wartime crash
A Bomber Command researcher from Shropshire is appealing for information about a wartime training tragedy near Shrewsbury which claimed the lives of two airmen.
Rob Davis from Telford has compiled a massive database of Bomber Command losses and wants to flesh out details of an accident which happened on August 19, 1944.
A twin-engined Mosquito had taken off from RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire on a cross-country flight. The official report said the crew were briefed to climb to 28,000ft and "at that point the aircraft is thought to have done an outside loop before a wing detached and it crashed at 12.55pm at Downs Farm, Longnor, eight miles south-south-west of Shrewsbury."
The wreckage was scattered over a considerable area.
Rob said: "I am generally interested to be able to amplify the loss record, perhaps from a local eyewitness or historian, and also to identify the exact crash location."
The crew of two who died were 23-year-old Flight Lieutenant John Mansfield Pearce, from Cheltenham, and 20-year-old wireless operator and navigator Pilot Officer Arthur Alan Young, of West Denton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Anyone with any information can contact Rob on rob.davis@blueyonder.co.uk
