Your recent feature on the Handley Page Hastings (Aeroplane April 2023) was of great interest as it brought back so many memories. My National Service in the RAF commenced with training as a flight mechanic (airframe) at No 4 School of Technical Training at St Athan. In early 1948 I found myself posted to No 1 Air Navigation School at Topcliffe, where I was assigned to servicing its elderly Anson Is and Wellingtons. The faithful 'Annies' were still remarkably reliable and free from troubles. The Wellingtons, however, suffered from so many accidents involving fatalities that RAF Topcliffe was subjected to an investigation in Parliament. Apart from the odd engine failure, the majority of crashes were not the fault of the 'Wimpeys,' the worst being the collision of two over the sergeants' mess. Another ditched in the sea off Southend, apparently out of fuel, and a fourth was last heard of way out over the North Sea on a night navigational exercise. Although I had not yet arrived at Topcliffe at that time, I was however present when a 'Wimpey' fell off its jacks in the hangar, creating the loudest bang I had ever heard. The expressions on the white face of the fitter working in the cockpit at the time as he abandoned ship in panic, and the rigger returning from the tyre bay with a removed undercarriage wheel, were always to be remembered. I also witnessed a Wellington flying through trees on the airfield boundary when its active engine failed while on a single-engine landing approach. It afterwards taxied past me with its Hercules engines stuffed with greenery, torn fabric hanging in shards from the fuselage and an elevator wrenched from its hinges.
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