Two weeks earlier 166 Squadron had re-formed at the new 1 Group airfield at Kirmington, which lay astride the A18 Grimsby-Scunthorpe main road and close to the Earl of Yarborough’s Brocklesby estate, on which some of the accommodation sites had been relocated after a German bomb had landed near the airfield while the runways were being laid. Hours later 166 had dispatched 18 Wellingtons on its very first operation, ironically to Lorient, and Ashplant and his crew were among them. They flew four more operations – a mining trip, to Lorient again and to Hamburg, when Ashplant’s V-Victor was amongst six Wellingtons to abort because of severe icing – before finding themselves preparing for their third trip to the U-boat base.
George Ashplant was typical of hundreds of bomber pilots in 1943. He was born in Liverpool in April 1922, the youngest son of George and Sarah Ashplant. His father was a school teacher who, by the time George arrived at Kirmington, was headmaster of Stanley Park Primary School in Anfield and a local Justice of the Peace. His older brother Michael was in the Fleet Air Arm, where he would later serve as an observer. George himself had been a pupil at the St Francis Xavier School in the city before joining the Civil Service. In 1941 he joined the Royal Air Force and was selected for pilot training.
His first posting was to the distinctly unglamorous No 1 Overseas Air Dispatch Unit at Portreath in Cornwall. Aircraft destined for use overseas, and particularly the Middle East, were modified at Kemble in Gloucestershire and then sent to Portreath where 1 OADU crews flew them out, initially to Gibraltar and then on to their theatre of operations. In June 1942 George Ashplant left Portreath for Gibraltar in a Blenheim V with a crew of two, Sgt Bill Smalley and Sgt Harry Bakewell. Over the Atlantic they noticed their fuel reserves were being depleted at an alarming rate and were forced to land in Portugal where, after they destroyed their documents and any sensitive equipment, they were arrested and handed over to the civilian police. Although officially interred, they were back in England within three weeks having been allowed to cross into Gibraltar. Later that year Sgt Ashplant was told he was being posted to join a new Wellington bomber squadron in Lincolnshire.
W/O George Ashplant (second right) pictured with his crew at Kirmington. (Jim Wright, 166 Squadron Association)
Bill Smalley was the bomb-aimer in Ashplant’s crew at Kirmington and had successfully bombed the target before AS-V turned for home over Lorient. They crossed the English coast near Lyme Regis and reduced height to 8,000 feet above Somerset, just 200 feet above the clouds, knowing that in less than an hour they would be back in the circuit at Kirmington.
At that point something happened that was every airman’s nightmare. From somewhere beneath them a 158 Squadron Halifax, returning to its base at Rufforth near York from the same raid, suddenly emerged from the clouds and struck the Wellington. The force of the impact was so great that the part of the fuselage under the nose of AS-V was sliced off and both engines wrenched from their mountings. For a few seconds the aircraft were locked together before the Halifax fell clear, turned on its back and plunged into the darkness below. With it went both Hercules II engines from V-Victor.
The Wellington went into spin but, by some means, F/Sgt Ashplant managed to level out his engineless bomber at 2,000 feet. Inside, it was a scene of utter despair. There was no power, no instruments, there was a gaping hole in the nose of the aircraft and the pilot had no hesitation in ordering his crew to jump for their lives. Sgt Smalley shouted over the noise of the wind roaring through the fuselage that his parachute had been carried away in the collision and, without hesitation, George Ashplant handed him his own parachute and told him to jump.
Once he was sure the last man had gone, he put the aircraft into what he hoped was a gentle descent, trying to make out anything on the ground beneath him. Within seconds he sensed the tops of trees flashing past, saw a hedge, pulled the stick up and then, somehow, managed a wheels-up landing in a field beyond, the Wellington coming to a halt amid a shower of mud, water and scraps of aluminium and fabric from the bomber’s fuselage. He could hardly believe it but he was on the ground and still in one piece.
F/Sgt Ashplant climbed out of the escape hatch, onto the wing and dropped onto the ground. It was only at this point he realised the full extent of the damage and became aware that both engines had been torn from their mountings and had fallen from the Wellington. Suffering only from a few cuts and bruises from the landing, he climbed a nearby railway embankment and made his way along the GWR Taunton-Yeovil branch line to Thorney and Kingsbury Halt where he saw some houses. The occupants of the first refused to answer the door but he had better luck at the second.
The collision had taken place almost directly above the small town of Langport in Somerset just as the local Home Guard and ARP units were involved in a defence exercise.
Among the Home Guard members on duty was 18-years-old Roy Jones of Somerton, who was about to join the Royal Air Force. They were tasked with ‘defending’ the town along the banks of the River Parrett from ‘attackers’, including Royal Marines.
‘We were lying on Hurd’s Hill when there was suddenly a tremendous explosion in the sky above,’ he was later to recall. At first the men thought it was linked to their exercise and only later did they discover it was the moment of impact between the Halifax and F/Sgt Ashplant’s Wellington.
Shortly afterwards the Halifax spiralled down to crash at the bottom of Kennel Lane, narrowly missing the houses in that part of Langport. Soon afterwards the engineless Wellington glided over Hurd’s Hill before crashing into fields between Drayton and Muchelney at Sam Quick’s farm.
Debris from the two planes, including all six engines, was scattered across Langport and neighbouring Huish. One engine fell in the drive of Captain McEvoy’s house in Newton Langport while another came down behind the Rose and Crown in Huish, much to the alarm of the publican, Eli Scott. Wing sections fell in Garden City, one large piece ending up in the garden behind Mrs Lisk’s house.
The Langport Home Guard later joined police officers in searching for crew members from the two aircraft. They found the body of the Wellington’s bomb-aimer, Sgt Smalley, beside a farm gate on the Wincanton road, just beyond Garden City, while three others surviving crew members, F/Sgt Henry Reid and Sgts Ernie Pounds, Ken Reeder and Ken Scott, were quickly located and they were later reunited with F/Sgt Ashplant at Langport police station. There they learned that Bill Smalley’s body had been found, his parachute not deploying in time to save him. They also learned that the bodies of the crew of the Halifax, including the pilot, had all been found inside the remains of their aircraft.
Another young man taking part in the same Home Guard exercise was Tony Crosse, who was then 15 and lived in Drayton. He was a messenger attached to the exercise HQ at the manor house in Drayton. Late in the evening he was sent out on his bicycle on an errand and remembered hearing the sound of numerous aircraft crossing Somerset and heading north. ‘I heard a prolonged burst of power, probably from the Halifax, followed by a heavy thud which made the windows rattle, and I went back into the house to report that an aircraft had probably crashed somewhere near Langport,’ he said. Soon after he learned that an aircraft had come down in flooded fields near the town and an engine had fallen between a garage and a bungalow in the village of Newtown. Later they heard that a Wellington bomber had come down just north of Kingsbury Episcopi.
The following morning Tony Crosse and a friend cycled to the Wellington’s crash site where they found many people standing on a nearby railway embankment to get a view of the wrecked aircraft. Tony’s friend, however, knew the Quick family, who owned the land, and both boys were able to slip past a ‘very casual’ sentry and walk round the Wellington, marvelling at how the pilot had managed to land it. He later made detailed drawings of the wreckage (these being lost in a subsequent fire) but remembered that the front turret itself was still attached to the fuselage, although nose down and with much of the fuselage underneath missing. Both engines had clearly been torn from their mountings
, one later being found at Newtown while the second was believed to have fallen into the flooded area west of Newtown and was never recovered.
‘It was not until I became a professional pilot I fully realised what a magnificent piece of airmanship Ashplant had carried out in landing a crippled bomber, which must have handled like a pig, on a dark night after a devastating collision,’ he later recalled.
Mrs Nancy Walker was then a 10-year-old who lived less than half a mile from the Wellington’s crash site. ‘I remember going down the next day to look at the Wellington. I even managed to collect a bit of the plane and had it for a few years before swapping it for a piece of a Spitfire that crashed in one of our fields!’
Olive O’Connell was just going to bed with her five-week-old baby when she looked out of the window of her parents’ home and saw one of Ashplant’s crew land by parachute on top of one of her father’s farm buildings. The airman was rescued by some of the local ARP men and carried across the road to the house where Olive helped remove his boot from a foot he had injured. ‘He was very concerned for his pilot who, he told us, had given his own parachute to another member of the crew. They were later reunited at the local police station,’ she said.
Richard Lane’s family were awoken by one of Ashplant’s crew who knocked on their door, looking for a change of clothing after landing in a flooded field. ‘I remember the man, who I think was the rear gunner, thought they had landed in Lincolnshire,’ he recalled.
When the survivors returned to Kirmington and told their story there was amazement at F/Sgt Ashplant’s actions, so much so that within days he had been recommended for an immediate Victoria Cross in a joint letter from his squadron commander, W/Cmdr R.A.C. Barclay, the base commander at Elsham, G/Capt Hugh Constantine, and AVM Arthur Rice, Air Officer Commanding 1 Group at Bawtry Hall. W/Cmdr Barclay described F/Sgt Ashplant’s actions ‘an act of extreme gallantry worthy of the highest recognition’. He wrote: ‘It is considered that this NCO, by his action in deliberately giving away his parachute to enable all his crew to abandon the aircraft, whilst he himself remained in the wreck without any lights or any means of escape other than the almost hopeless chance of surviving the inevitable crash, displayed most outstanding courage, devotion to duty and complete disregard for his personal safety’. In his endorsement, AVM Rice said F/Sgt Ashplant had acted in accordance with the highest traditions of the RAF and added: ‘I strongly recommend that he should be awarded the VICTORIA CROSS’, with the latter in capitals to emphasis just how he felt.
F/O Geoffrey Dhenin (seated centre) pictured during his time at Kirmington. With him are (back row) S/Ldr ‘Uncle’ Spence, intelligence officer, F/Lt Dennis Walker, engineering officer; (front) F/Lt Harry McGhie, 166 Squadron signals leader, and F/Lt Fred Fitton, 166 Squadron gunnery leader. (Jim Wright, 166 Squadron Association)
On March 14 a note was added to the letter: ‘Awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal (immediate award).’ It was signed A. T. Harris, Air Marshal, Commander-in-Chief, Bomber Command. It was later explained that the Victoria Cross would have been awarded had George Ashplant’s actions taken place over enemy territory but because the collision had happened shortly after the aircraft had crossed the English coast, it was appropriate that the award be the recently-introduced CGM (Flying), the equivalent of the DSO for non-commissioned officers. It is believed George Ashplant was only the second man in Bomber Command to receive the award and was the only man to fly in 1 Group to be recommended for a VC.
Two other men were to be decorated after their actions that night. The Halifax had crashed into a field between Yeovilton and the hamlet of Limington. Gladys Little’s husband worked on nearby Rugg Farm and she recalled that the farmer, Charlie Elford, who was milking his cows at the time, a young army officer, Lt John Bartholomew of the Royal Engineers, and another farm worker, Mr Duke, all tried in vain to get to the rear gunner, who they could see was still trapped in his turret. Later Mr Elford, who suffered serious burns in the incident, and Lt Bartholomew were to be awarded George Medals for their actions.
There was a footnote to the incident later in the month when an aide to King George VI wrote to Sir Louis Greig, whose duties at the Air Ministry including the overseeing of awards, to explain that when the King read the submission concerning F/Sgt Ashplant he was most interested to know more about the incident. ‘He would like to know,’ the letter went on, ‘what type of aircraft Sergeant Ashplant was flying and just what is meant by the phrase “both engines were torn from their bearers”. The King said he could not imagine how, in the circumstances, Sergeant Ashplant ever got the machine out of its spin.’
By mid-April George Ashplant (by now a Warrant Officer) and his crew, with a new bomb aimer and wireless operator, were back on operations and were to have another fortunate escape the following month when, as they were about to take off from Kirmington for a raid on Duisburg, a photoflash ignited in the aircraft’s flare chute. The crew hastily abandoned their Wellington which was destroyed by the resulting fire.
But George Ashplant’s crew’s good fortune finally ran out on the night of July 24-25 over Hamburg. Their aircraft was coned by searchlights and crashed in Buchholz, just north of the city. Although the aircraft was later claimed by the pilot of a Fw190 flying a ‘wild boar’ sortie, it was credited to the Hamburg flak. George Ashplant was later buried alongside his crew, F/Sgts Reid and Jeffery and the two recent additions, Sgts Cyril Land and Alex Wells. Their graves were later moved to the British war cemetery in Hamburg where all five rest today, the inscription on George Ashplant’s grave reads: “We salute him; Whose course is run.” The day after the raid a notice arrived at Kirmington promoting both George Ashplant and his navigator Henry Reid to the rank of pilot officer.
He was never to receive his CGM nor was the King able to ask how he had landed that Wellington. Instead, it was presented to his father at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in December 1945.
F/Sgt Ashplant was later commemorated on three war memorials in Liverpool, at Halewood Parish Church close to his family’s home, at the St Francis Xavier School in Woolton and at St Charles RC Church in Aigburth.
His CGM remained with the family in Liverpool until the early 1980s when it was stolen during a burglary at his sister-in-law’s house. It was never recovered.
The crew that went alone
It was courage of a different sort which led to another act of extraordinary bravery by a Lancaster crew from Elsham Wolds just a few weeks after George Ashplant won his CGM.
They were led by S/Ldr Charles O’Donoghue, a regular RAF officer who had spent part of the war in India and had flown Blenheims before arriving at Elsham Wold early in 1943 where he joined 103 Squadron. There he was to make a reputation for himself as something of a maverick, a man who liked to do things his own way. He told his crew he disliked night operations and would prefer to operate as he had done in Blenheims, by day, something he was to put into practice before very long in dramatic fashion.
March of 1943 was a stormy month and Elsham wasn’t a good place to be in those conditions. There was heavy rain, low cloud and banks of fog alternating with storm-force winds which led to operations being cancelled and nerves becoming frayed as crews steeled themselves for yet another sortie over only to be stood down at the last minute. At times the winds were so strong even the Lancasters parked at their dispersals could be seen to be moving slightly, straining against their chocks as their wings flexed in the wind.
It was in these conditions that S/Ldr O’Donoghue asked to do something quite extraordinary, carry out a single-aircraft surprise daylight attack on Germany.
Another operation had been scrubbed on the night of March 19th and it was then that O’Donoghue, who had recently replaced the tour-expired S/Ldr Kennard as ‘A’ Flight commander, went to see the squadron CO, W/Cmdr Carter, with his idea for a solo nuisance raid. Carter consulted Group HQ at Bawtry and, after reviewing O’Donoghue’s plans, gave the go-ahead.
Early the next morni
ng O’Donoghue and his new crew, flight-engineer Sgt Jim Callaghan, a 20-year-old Londoner, navigator Sgt Tony Fry (21) from Grantham, bomb-aimer F/O Eric Ashcroft (20) from Worthing, wireless operator Sgt John Winn (22) from Northampton and gunners F/O Ian Burns DFM, a 22-year-old Glasgwegian who had won his medal on his first tour with 144 Squadron in Hampdens, and Sgt Sefton Stafford (33) from Blackpool, climbed aboard Lancaster ED612. It was still very dark at the dispersal but, as the only RAF bomber flying that morning, there was nothing to delay their take-off at 4.20am.
Their target was the small port of Leer, near Emden and they carried 11 1,000lb bombs, the first with a six hour delayed fuse. The squadron’s operation record book recorded: ‘It was a target of S/Ldr O’Donaghue’s own choosing and he bombed from 3,200ft at 0645. As this was a surprise raid, he was, of course, the only aircraft attacking. The first stick of bombs fell within 100 yards of the town’s railway station and the second stick fell parallel to the town’s main street.’ The report added that the attack was made ‘in foul weather’ and the Lancaster returned safely, landing at Elsham at 0842.
O’Donoghue’s raid was judged a success so when he requested another solo raid eleven nights later permission was readily granted.
In the interim his crew had taken part in an inconclusive attack on Duisburg on the night of March 26/27 and Berlin three nights later when 21 bombers were lost and most of the bombs fell in open country. In between O’Donoghue had to abort a raid on St Nazaire when two engines on his Lancaster cut on take-off. He managed to get the aircraft clear of the airfield and was ordered to dump his bombs in the North Sea before making a successful two-engine landing back at base. During the Berlin raid O’Donaghue’s Lancaster dropped its bombs from 16,000ft, some four thousand feet below the other Elsham Lancasters.
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