Soqotra (Socotra) Island

Following an email from Vladimir Agafonov, who gave me a link to a website relating to Royal Air Force activities in the Middle East during World War II, and the permission of the webmaster, Robert Quirk, I publish an account of a fatal air crash that took place at Ras Karma, Soqotra on 24th August 1944.

In 1964/65 I was detailed to photograph any graves I could find in the area but only saw piles of stones. They may not have been the graves of the airmen involved in this crash.

The story is that F/Sgt Vaughan was probably co-pilot with W/Officer Miller RCAF, flying in a mixed Canadian/British crew compromising Kenneth Mooney RAF, David Jones RCAF, Marie Joseph Leduc RCAF and an as yet unidentified sixth crewman. They tragically died on August 24th 1944 in an event when the aircraft crashed shortly after take-off. It was also thought that the sixth crewman was the Rear Gunner who had survived the initial impact but had died subsequently.

So far I've pieced together a bit more of the story, with a bit of old fashioned detective work and a great stroke of luck. The detective work was to go through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site on the Internet and search for all the airmen who sadly died on the days subsequent to Vaughan's death. The site forces you to narrow a surname down to two letters i.e. search for Aa, Ab, Ac etc. Eventually, I located Warrant Officer Class 1, W.Op/Air Gnr. John Keith Brown, another Canadian hailing from Ontario like the others. He had died only one day later and is also buried in Maala, Yemen with I am presuming the rest of his crew. It seems too much of a coincidence that we have an airman also from Ontario, also strangely commemorated as 21 Squadron, dying so close to the original crash date, in the same cemetery.

The stroke of luck was to pursue a long-shot with the RAF Museum in Hendon who I discovered hold an incomplete set of accident records from 1919 onwards. I wrote speculatively to them and incredibly they returned a photocopy of the same!

Date: 24th August 1944

Unit: 621 Squadron – that was a surprise.

Type: Wellington XIII No. JA835 or possibly JA535, the first digit is not clear.

Airfield: Ras Karma, Soqotra Island, Aden.

Pilot: Miller and 2nd Pilot Hinder.

Miller has his flying times, unfortunately not Hinder. Though Miller had 800 hours total solo, had 302 hours solo on type, the night solo come down to 76 and 53. Does that sound fair to say this seems a new crew who have only made a few flights together possibly?

Accident: 19:37, 5 minutes into flight, Night, Duty: Anti-submarine patrol.

"Propeller of aircraft heard to be running away on Take Off. Aircraft climbed to 100' and hit crest of hill at 150' when attempting to circuit on one engine or force land on top of hill. Pilot could not cope with aircraft after engine failure or starboard prop selector switch knocked into fixed or incorrect manipulation of switches by pilot. There is no evidence what caused the engine failure but aircraft had just completed a 9 hour trip with no signs of trouble". Then a Postscript: "CO - unlikely that prop selector switch was knocked across into fixed. Pilot would have noticed when he feathered. AOC — concurs".

It was just so incredible to hear this — the clinical crash investigator laying all options on the table including pilot error, then the CO and AOC moved to include comments that they thought this unlikely. The possible greenness of the crew. The fact that a plane that had just completed a 9 hour flight, should then be going up again. Five minutes from take-off to death.

RAF Hendon also enclosed a photocopy from "Coastal, Support and Special Squadrons of the RAF and their Aircraft", by John Rawlings which unfortunately doesn't have JA(5)35 against either 621 or 244 Squadron. Out of interest, the list provided for 244 Sqdn. for Wellington XIII is: February 1944 — May 1945

Gary Tranter (Mem. No.353)

Jim Heslop (Secretary & Supplies) W/Cdr Ron Rotherham (President) Don James (Treasurer)

My grateful thanks for allowing me to publish this account which I have edited slightly. John Farrar

A Wellington of the type involved in this crash. The Wellington was designed by Barnes Wallis who also devised the 'bouncing bomb' used by the Dam Busters in their raid on German dams.

Postscript. Following further investigations by Robert Quirk, who sent me the above text, he has now sent me these details of the crash and the aircrew.

Millar, Mervin Edwin P/O (P) J87206. From Lethbridge, Alberta. Killed August 24, 1944 age 27. No 21 Squadron (Viribus Vincimus). The crew of Wellington aircraft No. JA535 took off on an anti-submarine patrol and crashed just after take-off two miles from the Ras Karma Landing Ground on Socotra, Aden. (Very close to where the present airfield is - John Farrar) The crash was due to a suspected overspeed of the air screw's rotor gear. The pilot throttled back to prevent seizure of the engine, turned right through 170 degrees then stalled and crashed on a slight rise off the end of the runway. Warraant Officers D.C. Jones, J.K. Brown, P/O M.J. Leduc and two of the crew, not Canadians, were also killed. Pilot Officer Millar was buried in the Military Cemetery, Socotra, exhumed and reburied in the Maala Cemetery, Aden..

Brown, John Keith WO1WAG - R129538. From Forest, Ontario. Killed in action August 24, 1944 age 21. No. 21 Squadron (Viribus Vincimus). Wellington aircraft crashed. Warrant Officer Class 1 Wireless Operator Air Gunner Brown is buried in Maala Cemetery, Aden.

Jones, David Charles Towyn Wo1(WAG) R121630. From Edmonton, Alberta. Killed in action August 24, 1944 age 21. No 21 Squadron (Viribus Vincimus). Wellington aircraft crashed. Warrant Officer Class 1 Wireless Operator Jones is buried in the Maala Cemetery, Aden.

Leduc, Marie Joseph Claude Hamel P/O (WAG) J87256. From Beauharnois, Quebec. Killed in action August 24, 1944 age 22. No 21 Squadron (Viribus Vincimus). Wellington aircraft crashed. Pilot Officer Wireless Operator Air Gunner Leduc is buried in the Maala Cemetery, Aden.

Note by John Farrar. By a strange coincidence, it is August 24th 2007 as I write this text, exactly 63 years to the day the accident happened. What a tragic loss of young lives and the grief this must have brought to the families of the aircrew who died on an unknown island far away from their homeland.

By coincidence, among the photographs Ian sent me are some taken at the funeral of the airmen killed in the crash of Wellington JA535.