[BITList] Lady Rowling

[John Feltham]

G'day fred,

On 20/09/2008, at 8:53 PM, fredmno at aol.com wrote:

Setting aside JK ...... for now....

See...maps and pictures are on the site.

http://harringtonmuseum.org.uk/D%20Z%20Vol%204%20Issue%201%202006.pdf

or

http://tinyurl.com/3vtg8q

See also.....

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/lait/
site/B-24%2042-50291.htm

or

http://tinyurl.com/rxafw

On Wednesday 23rd August
1944 the personnel at Warton
Air Base in Lancashire were
going about their usual tasks
involving aircraft maintenance.
The Air Base is built along the
southern edge of the village of
Warton and extends to the
western outskirts of Freckleton,
with the main runway laid out
east to west. Warton was established
by the USAAF in September
1942 as AAF Station
582, and in October 1943 became
Base Air Depot 2.
The main tasks at Warton were
the preparation for service of
new aircraft and the refurbishment
of ‘battle weary’ machines.
Many of the B24 Liberator
bombers that were used
by the Carpetbaggers had been
modified at Warton.
BAD 2 was de-activated in September
1945 and it is estimated
that during the three years it
was in service around 14,000
aircraft passed through the depot,
including some 3,000 B24
Liberators.
It was one of these Liberators
named Classy Chassis II, that
while on a test flight infamously
earned her place in aviation
history after being involved in
the worst aircraft accident in
Britain during WW2.
Classy Chassis II, USAAF Serial
No. 42-50291, was originally
assigned to the 490th BG,
849th BS but before flying any
combat missions, was transferred
to 486th BG, 832nd BS.
Between the 4th June and the
9th July 1944 Classy Chassis II
carried out bombing missions
on airfields and coastal defences
in France before being
taken out of service and sent
for refurbishment to BAD 2.
At 10.30 on the morning of
Wednesday 23rd of August
1944, life in the village of Freckleton
was continuing as normal.
The ‘Sad Sack’ café had its
usual mix of British and American
service personnel taking
their mid-morning break along
with a few civilians, and at the
village school the children were
getting on with their lessons.
This was the first week of the
autumn term and for many of
the children in the infants class,
their very first week at school.
Also starting her first week at
the school was Miss Jenny
Hall, a teacher and local girl
who had arrived at Holy Trinity
School only the day before.
At Warton Air Base two B24
bombers were cleared for take
off at 10.30 hrs on a test flight.
The first to be airborne was
Classy Chassis II flown by 1st
Lieutenant John Bloemendal,
one of BAD 2's regular test pilots,
with T/Sgt Jimmie Parr as
CLASSY CHASSIS II
By Fred West
co-pilot and Sgt Gordon Kinney
as flight engineer. The take-off
was uneventful and the B-24
headed out over the Lancashire
countryside, accompanied by
the second B-24, flown by 1st
Lieutenant Pete Manassero.
At around this time the city of
Manchester was just starting to
dry out after a very severe summer
storm. The sky had turned
black before the arrival of a violent
electrical storm, accompanied
by torrential rain.
The storm moved quickly westward
and soon approached
BAD 1 at Burtonwood, who immediately
alerted Warton. It is
not known exactly how great an
area the storm covered, but it
was at least 40 miles wide,
north to south.
At about 10.40 hrs the two
B24’s were told to return to
base, but when they arrived
over Warton the storm was already
raging. Summer storms
are by no means unusual, but
this one was different in that it
was accompanied by winds
gusting to more than 60 miles
an hour that caused a lot of
structural damage to property.
Lt. Manassero decided that it
was unsafe to attempt a landing
in such severe conditions and
informed Warton control tower
that he intended to fly north out
of the path of the storm. He
then contacted Lt. Bloemendal
to say he was setting a course
of 330 degrees and Bloemendal
acknowledged this.
Visibility was now so poor that
Lt. Manassero lost sight of
Classy Chassis II and even at
500 feet he could not see the
ground so had to fly on instruments.
He flew over the coast
and headed north for about five
minutes until breaking out of
the storm and again called Lt.
Bloemendal, but did not receive
a reply.
Bloemendal informed control
that he was retracting his undercarriage
and ‘going round’,
but nobody knows exactly what
he intended to do. Eyewitness
accounts say that the B24
came in low over Freckleton
and then flipped with its wings
almost vertical before hitting a
tree and cart-wheeling down
the street.
As the 25-ton aircraft disintegrated
it partly demolished
three houses and the ‘Sad
Sack’ Snack Bar before finally
hitting the infant’s wing of Holy
Trinity School. The spilled fuel
from the ruptured tanks ignited
engulfing the school and the
street in flames. It was 10.47
hrs.
The first to reach the crash site
were the fire fighters from BAD
2 who were quickly joined by
the National Fire Service and
people from Freckleton village.
The scene was one of utter
devastation and the intense
heat prevented the rescuers
from giving any aid to the
screaming children in the
school.
Wednesday 23rd August 1944
was a happy day for the
French; Paris was liberated that
day. In Freckleton they were
mourning the dead and asking
“why us?”
The final death toll was sixtyone.
This included 38 children,
two teachers, one of whom was
Miss Jenny Hall, and the members
of crew on board Classy
Chassis II. Six US airmen
along with four RAF personnel
and six civilians died in the ‘Sad
Sack’ Snack Bar.
The subsequent inquiry into the
disaster was unable to reach a
definite conclusion as to the
cause, but it was thought that
Lt. Bloemendal had misjudged
the severity of the storm. The
most likely explanation is that
with the aircraft banked and the
outer wing naturally tending to
rise, a sudden gust of wind
pushed the wings vertical and
the pilot didn’t have sufficient
height to recover from this
situation.
The majority of the victims of
this tragedy are buried in a
communal grave in the grounds
of Freckleton village’s Holy
Trinity Church.
Brigadier General Isaac W. Ott,
commander of BAD 2 Warton,
represented the U.S.A.A.F. at
the elaborate funeral ceremony,
for which the American authorities
bore the cost.
Full details of this Incident can
be found at:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/lait/
site/B-24%2042-50291.htm
The Freckleton Disaster was
the worst incident of WW II involving
a military aircraft and
the civilian population of Britain.
Not surprisingly, even after almost
sixty-two years there are
some in Freckleton who still
harbour feelings of resentment
that this disaster ever happened,
but to outsiders it was
just another incident of war.
The question of what went
wrong that morning will continue
to be asked for many
years to come. Lt. Manassero
claimed that he was flying
about 100 yards on the right
wing of Classy Chassis II as
both planes approached the
airfield from the North West and
then moved further out before
flying over the coats and starting
a left turn. At this point he
would be over the Irish Sea
(which he referred to as the
wash) and after completing his
turn would be heading for the
Western end of the airbase.
The extremely poor visibility
made it impossible for Lt. Manassero
to see the ground so
he decided to fly north out of
the storm. He informed Lt.
Bloemendal of his intentions
and this message was acknowledged
which poses the question,
where was Lt. Bloemendal
at this time?
When Lt. Manassero completed
his left turn over the Irish Sea
he approached Warton over the
town of Lytham, but Lytham is
at least eight miles West of
Freckleton. The accompanying
sketch map shows the flight
path of Classy Chassis II that is
consistent with an approach
from the North West, but if both
aircraft were together originally,
where did Lt. Bloemendal go
while Lt. Manassero was covering
a distance of eight to ten
miles?
The most likely explanation is
that Lt. Manassero banked right
a few miles North of the airfield
and flew over the coast while
Lt. Bloemendal continued to fly
South East. Perhaps he intended
to fly over Freckleton
and then bank right over the
Ribble Estuary, fly over the Irish
Sea and bank right again to
make an approach from the
west as both planes had been
cleared to land on runway 08
which would have normally required
an approach from the
west.
But as he appears to have
been attempting a right turn
when the wing tip hit the tree,
he could have decided, too late,
to follow a similar course to that
taken by Lt. Manassero. No
one now will ever know what
his intentions were.
Freckleton Holy Trinity School
was just a small building built in
1839. If Classy Chassis II had
been flying just two feet higher,
or just a few feet left or right of
its actual path, the school might
have been spared. What terrible
games Fate can play.
Note. We would like to thank
the historians of the 490th Bomb
Group for their assistance with
the preparation of this article
The Member of Parliament for
the Fylde district of Lancashire
that includes Freckleton, was
Lt. Col. Claude Granville Lancaster,
who in 1944 was the
owner of Kelmarsh Hall, three
miles from Harrington. Col.
Lancaster became friendly with
Col. Fish, Second– In-
Command at Harrington Air
Base and it is believed that Col.
Fish spent some of his off duty
time at Kelmarsh Hall.
It has been suggested that after
news of the Freckleton disaster
reached Col. Lancaster he contacted
Col. Fish, who arranged
to fly him to Warton so he could
be amongst his constituents. It
has not been possible for the
author to confirm this and any
further information would be
greatly appreciated.
Please either write to Harrington
Aviation Museum, or send
an email to
cbaggermuseum at aol.com
While the people of Freckleton
were still coming to terms with
the terrible events of August,
there was a further incident at
Warton, witnessed by the author.
On November 29th 1944 a
group of Douglas A26 Invaders
took to the air around 11.00 hrs
and while circling over the Ribble
Estuary gaining height and
formation, two of the bombers
collided.
The flaming wreckage fell on
Warton Marsh from where the
bodies of all members of the
crew were later recovered. The
remains of the two aircraft were
left on the marsh and eventually
became covered with an
estimated two metres of silt. An
unsuccessful attempt was
made during the 1980’s to
reach the wreckage.
In 2004 the Channel 4 Time
Team, with the assistance of
the RAF’s ‘crash and burn’
team and other aviation experts,
excavated the site in an
attempt to discover the cause
of the collision. The programme
was shown on TV in
January 2005 and full details
can be found at:
http://www.channel4.com/
history/timeteam/2005_prest_t.
html
The A26 Invaders, which had
just come into service, were en
route to various air bases in
Britain. It is quite likely that this
group included aircraft bound
for Harrington in preparation for
Operation Red Stocking, the
missions that dropped individual
agents into the more inaccessible
parts of Europe.
The Ribble Estuary was the
scene of other aircraft crashes
during WWII. In 1941 a Junkers
88 that was returning from a
bombing raid on Liverpool was
shot down and crashed in an
area known as Crab Hollow on
Banks marsh. Early in September
1944 a Mosquito that was
engaged in firing practice, using
targets placed on Banks marsh
failed to pull out of a dive and
crashed killing both crew members.
For a short time the world was
made a better place by the
young men and women of that
era who fought for democracy.
But how many more will have to
give their lives before the majority
of people on our planet
learn to live in peace and harmony?



ooroo

If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.

Anon.