Christmas and New Year doesn’t stop for war, and the inevitable battle of the Second World War continued on with air and ground crews across Britain carrying out their duties as normal, perhaps looking forward to a rest in the following days. December 29th 1944 was one such day.
514 Squadron RAF 1944. Photo taken at Waterbeach Military Heritage Museum, August 2017
It was a hazy morning with a severe winter frost laying across the ground, fourteen aircraft were allocated for operations whilst for those non-operational crews it would be H2S and G.H. training. Out of the dispersal, the operational aircraft were being loaded with their bombs and prepared for the forthcoming flight, when suddenly one of the bombs being loaded on to Lancaster PD325 ‘JI-L2’ fell and exploded. The resultant explosion completely destroyed the aircraft and severely damaged seven others including NG141 which was parked alongside. The blast, heard as far away as Mildenhall some 23 miles away, had repercussions right across the airfield, damaging windows and sending aircraft parts far and wide. Nine members of the ground crew attending to the aircraft also died, five of them simply ‘disappeared’ as did a tractor along with its portable generator. Following the incident, which was thought to have been caused by an ‘old stock’ bomb, the Station Commander cancelled operations for the day in case time delayed bombs on other aircraft exploded. The bomb disposal teams were brought in to remove those that were left remaining in the aircraft bomb bays. New Year at RAF Waterbeach would be very solemn in 1944.
Those that lost their lives that day were all members of 514 Sqn:
Leading Aircraftman Derrick Gordon Bichard (RAFVR) Radar Mechanic (s/n: 1870102)
Leading Aircraftman Samuel Bolton (RAFVR) Flight Mechanic (s/n: 1639785) – Commemorated at Runnymede
Aircraftman 2nd Class Donald Victor Brewer (RAFVR) Armament Assistant (s/n: 1893614)
Leading Aircraftman Ronald Davies (RAFVR) Flight Mechanic (s/n: 1128796)
Leading Aircraftman Geoffrey Graham Haydn (RAFVR) Radar Mechanic (s/n: 1863381)
Aircraftman 1st Class Harry George Leach (RAFVR) Electrician (s/n: 1429200) – Commemorated at Runnymede
Leading Aircraftman Laurence Smales (RAFVR) Flight Mechanic (s/n: 1621436) – Commemorated at Runnymede
Leading Aircraftman Frederick Charles Watson (RAFVR) Flight Mechanic (s/n: 1169390) – Commemorated at Runnymede
Corporal John Westgarth (RAF) Armourer (s/n: 552023) – Commemorated at Runnymede
Aviation Trails 
What a very sad end to the year for the families of all those involved.
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It was indeed. You’d think I it was relatively safe being on home ground but death sadly, is never far away.
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Damn, what a story. Bombs are made a little safer today to prevent accidental ground mishaps. Maybe this incident contributed to improved bombs later. It is always hard to hear of such brave, brave men loosing their life no matter what the circumstances.
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It certainly was a tragedy. Whether or not it led to development of safer bombs or not, I don’t know. But it would be good to think it did, then at least those lives wouldn’t have been lost in vain.
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Where are my manners? I was so excited to think about Fauld again that I forgot to thank you for your careful researches about the tragedy of RAF Waterbeach.
I suppose that nine casualties after such an event were, pretty well, “getting away with it” in the context of Bomber Command’s war over Germany. Mind you, the eighteen parents of those nine casualties may not have shared that opinion.
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You are totally forgiven John. In fact it never even crossed my mind. In context it was quite a major and indeed tragic event. In the wider scheme of things, it was a small part of a major tragedy that took many thousands of lives. So many parents, sons, daughters etc who would grieve with many never having proper closure.
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Don’t think for a minute that the tractor and generator were necessarily vaporised…….
I wrote this years ago…
“During the course of the Second World War, some 3,700 tonnes of bombs were stored in an enormous underground RAF munitions dump at Fauld, a small village near Uttoxeter in Staffordshire.
In November 1944, the whole thing simply blew up. The blast left a crater some three quarters of a mile across, and well over four hundred feet deep.
This still remains nowadays, almost eighty years later, the largest explosion ever on British soil.
Although the explosion was picked up by seismographs as faraway as Casablanca in Morocco, the only effect that it had in the village of Woodville where my grandparents lived was felt most directly in nearby Swadlincote.
Out of a clear blue sky came a large railway truck that had been launched into the air some thirty miles away at Fauld. This must surely have been the strangest event ever to occur in that quiet semi-rural backwoods of South Derbyshire.”
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Well you may well be right John. I think it was more that the tractor was never found, it could well have been sitting in some farmers field many miles away.
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I agree 100% with that!
And Happy New Year to you and yours!!
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Thank you and happy new year to you all also.
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Excellent!
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Thank you.
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Hi Andy,
Seven 500-pound bombs lit off on the runway in Joy-ride’s crash, while taking off. Was this a common occurrence? I heard that while backing up a truck with a load of old bombs, as they fill into the disposal pit, that the entire pit blew up. That the explosion could be heard in London?
The 514th paid a terrible price ,with so many killed. Like my Dads crash, there were no remains left. Their dust is in the Woodrow’s Airfield runway. That’s where the five crewmen of Joy-ride are and that why I travel to England to visit his grave site. I can stand on the concrete patch that still remains in the farmer’s field. There was nothing in the coffins that were buried at Cambridge and then remove to Illinois.
A very happy New Year to you and yours.
Your friend across the pond,
Cheers, Bill
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Hi Bill
They are such sad stories, so many young men lost in such tragic circumstances. It was good that you managed to make it to your father’s place, his story is repeated so many times at other airfields.
A very happy new year also to you and all those close to you.
All the best
Andy
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