Personnel Index - Detail
Flew 9 operations with 49Sqn.
SEASIDE SORTIE (November 1943)
F/O Don Turner (JB229) and crew were returning over the North Sea on track, with 1,000ft showing on the altimeter. The conditions were misty, so the pilot decided to let down a little in order to determine landfall. Just as he did the Lancaster suddenly struck the sea and then moments later it was careering up a beach towards sand dunes. A startled but intact crew clambered out into waist high freezing sea water! S-Sugar had in fact come ashore at Chapel-St-Leonards on the Lincolnshire coast 5 miles north of Skegness. The freezing cold crew found much to their displeasure, that the Lincolnshire seaside, whilst perhaps popular with pre-war summertime holiday makers, was not so alluring in the middle of November 1943. The crew spent the next few days recovering in Scampton sick bay.
Pilot........F/O D G Turner
F/E..........Sgt J Finlayson
Nav........ Sgt J N Hughes
B/A.........F/O W Pearce
WOp......Sgt L Nightingale
MUG......Sgt T D Horne
RG.........Sgt J N E Bennett
Further details of the incident are recored in May Hill's WW2 diary (opens in a new window).
Sgt Huhes was transferred to 44Sqdn possibly as a temporary replacement before next being mentioned in the Fulbeck Movement Order in October 1944. He was in 'B' Flight of the Main Ground Party. He is not mentioned again throughout the rest of 1944 nor 1945.
If not transferred again (postings in and out were not recorded after 1943) he may have become a Navigational section leader......ie a desk job.