FATAL MERCY FLIGHT

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 February 1947, Page 5

FATAL MERCY FLIGHT

BOMBER CRASHES: SEVEN KILLED TAKING FOOD TO VILLAGES (Recd. 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, February 13. When a R.A.F. Halifax bomber parachuting food to a snowbound Staffordshire village crashed this morning all seven of the crew were killed. The bomber was one of many which are being used to take food to towns and villages which have been cut off for up to six days by Arctic conditions in Britain. The pilot reached his objective—the village of Butterton—and radioed that conditions had grown worse since previous mercy flights to the area. The bomber was then seen to explode in mid-air. It crashed on Gindon Moor, two miles from the village. Local residents rushed to the crash and found containers attached to green parachutes strewn round the plane. One man was alive in the rear turret but he died later.

A Royal Air Force mountain rescue party has left for the scene. Two of the men aboard the Halifax were press photographers. The Air Ministry said no further attempts to drop food would be made to-day. Earlier it was intended to drop a paratrooper from a position obtained by radar. He was to set up a portable radar beacon and “home” the Halifaxes on to the position so that they could drop supplies from a safe height in cloud.