English Electric
Jun 25, 2007, 02:09 PM
I was recently contacted by a local amateur Historian who had seen some of my photos feature on a local website.
He was researching the story of a Spitfire that had crashed in Guildford, killing the pilot during the War.
He asked me if I could take an aerial photo of the crash site which would be published in our local paper [Surrey Advertiser] along with the story.
He said he could not afford to pay a significant amount as he was a retired Pentioner. I replied, telling him I was a big Aviation fan and would gladly do it free of charge.
We arranged to meet at some waste land near to the site. I had recently bought a Parkzone Spitfire, which I could not resist bringing along!
I flew a couple of Sorties with my EZ*/Nikon 7900 combination, achieving the required results at the second attempt.
Once the work was over it was time for a play with the Spitfire! I flew a few low passes for Frank to get some shots. Luckilly this Spit stayed Sunny side up....
When I looked at the article in the Paper, I was supprised to see they included a photo of my Spitfire!
The story was printed in two parts. Unfortunatly I missed the first part.
Frank [the Author] has sent me the complete story and given me permission to post it here.
All word below are by Frank Phillipson.
SLYFIELD GREEN SPITFIRE CRASH
Just before midday on Sunday 19th October 1941, an RAF Mk.Ia Spitfire, piloted by Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Sergeant Donald Newsham Law, was practising aerial manoeuvres north of Guildford. He had taken off from RAF Heston (west of London) where he was receiving instruction with No.61 Operational Training Unit (OTU) Fighter Command.
Without warning his aircraft went into a power dive and crashed into the sewage filter beds east of Slyfield Green in the vicinity of what is now the main building of todays Moorfield Road waste transfer station. Sgt. Law would have been killed instantly when the aircraft hit the ground at such high speed.
There were a number of eye witnesses to the crash. Thomas Cribb (sadly recently deceased), at home on leave from a north-eastern Anti-Aircraft gun site, was digging the garden at No.2 Woodlands Road. He described hearing an aircraft diving and turning for about 10 minutes above the clouds. Suddenly it appeared out of the clouds in a 45 degree engine screaming power dive, ending abruptly in a terrific earth shaking thump. He ran straight to the crash site arriving before any of the authorities and found the aircraft with its nose buried into one of the filter beds.
He didn't go near the aircraft as it was quite obvious that the pilot must have been killed instantly but he could see the cockpit section of the fuselage with the canopy/hood burst open and the pilot’s parachute hanging out. There was no fire, just slight wisps of smoke rising from the hot engine now cooling down. In the general vicinity there was a lot of ammunition strewn about. He threw as much as he could see into the filter bed for safety as children began to arrive attracted by the crash. After about an hour he decided to return home.
Another witness, Basil Colborne, then living in Burpham, made his way in the direction of the crash site and says he saw the remains of the aircraft in the filter beds. He watched as a rescue team recovered the pilots body wrapped in his parachute.
Douglas Graham, aged six at the time, remembers the very loud sound of the aircraft flying over his home at No.31 Woodlands Road and thought it was going to hit the chimneys. He says that the aircraft, when seen later from a distance, was lying among some bullrushes.
Bob Ward recalls the tremendous thump of the crash. He and some of his mates made their way to the crash site and saw the remains of the aircraft with it’s nose buried at 45 degrees into the ground with just the cockpit section visible. The fuselage behind this point was missing.
Bill Lamy (an young evacuee living in the Merrow Woods area at the time) says that he and his friend went to see the crash site. He remembers feeling rather disappointed that all there was to see was just the damaged cockpit section of the fuselage plonked down in the filter bed. There seemed to be no wings or tail that they could see from their vantage point.
Ron Shettle was at Guildford Fire Station, Ladymead and heard the high-pitched noise of the Spitfire’s engine. He looked up and saw it dive vertically and with a loud thump crash into the Slyfield Green area. He raised the alarm with the firemen who went out to the scene. When they returned they told him that the Spitfire had crashed into the filter beds.
If the pilots parachute was hanging out of the cockpit, it might indicate that Sgt. Law regained consciousness and made a last-minute attempt to bale out. As he sat on his parachute pack he would have had to release his cockpit harness first. If the ripcord was then accidentally pulled or snagged, the parachute canopy could have been sucked out of the aircraft by the airflow. It is unlikely that he would have been able to get free of the cockpit in any event due to the high speed of the dive.
A number of witnesses say that they were stopped by the police from getting close to the scene because of ammunition exploding due to fire. However the RAF Accident Record Card (ARC) reports that there was no fire either in the air or upon impact. It may be that later on leaked aviation fuel caught alight or that some detached sections of the aircraft caught fire.
The area just to the north of the crash site was used at the time as the Council rubbish dump and to the local children it became known as "Spitfire Dump". Witnesses say that the RAF recovered the remains of the aircraft a few days later.
The St John Ambulance log for the 19th October 1941 records that Superintendent Rutter and Private Swain attended the aeroplane crash at the " Sewerage Farm, Stoke". They were responding to a police call and eventually conveyed Sgt. Law’s body to the Guildford Mortuary, Millbrook.
The Operational Record Book for No.61 OTU reports the following for the 19th October 1941 "Weather fine with a strong N.W. wind". "Three accidents today, one fatal...." "Fatal accident appears, according to a civil eyewitness account, to have happened when NZ Sgt. pupil Law failed to recover normal flying position after looping".
The ARC says that Sgt. Law was flying at 2000 to 2500 feet altitude and that he was practising "FL (Forced Landing) approaches and slow rolls". It goes on to say that he "Crashed many miles S. of Heston whereas flt (flight) was auth.(authorised) for an area N. of the (aero) drome."
The Court of Inquiry into the crash stated that Sgt. Law "Failed to recover from dive which apparently started at the end of a turn left or hit a very heavy downdraught and possibly rendered unconscious by striking his head on hood."
The South East Region Civil Defence Summary dated 20th October 1941 refers to the crash site under the section titled "Grounded Aircraft" and states "British single seat fighter, wrecked at Punt Field, Slyfield Green, Guildford, at 11:40 hours 19th October. Pilot killed". "Punt Field" is shown on the 1842 Stoke Tithe Map as a field, which by 1941 was the largest area of rectangular filter beds, between the River Wey to the south east and the path/track surrounding it to the west and north.
Donald (Don) Law was born at Gisborne on New Zealand’s North Island on the May 26, 1918, to Albert John (a bank clerk) and Ivy Juanita Law. The family eventually settled in Cambridge in the centre of the North Island. He was very good at rugby and also played football, tennis and golf. He left school at 16 and worked for the Bank of New South Wales at various branches on the North Island until he joined the RNZAF.
When the Second World War started, Don wanted to “do his bit”. Seeing an article calling for young men to join up as aircrew, on September 28, 1939, he applied to join the RNZAF. On his application form he mentioned that he had experienced a 15-minute flight, probably a local joyride. In the interim he joined the NZ Territorial Army as a private. Not hearing anything about his application he wrote to the NZ Air Secretary asking if he could join the Fleet Air Arm instead. However, on November 24, 1940, he was eventually enlisted at the Ground Training Squadron at RNZAF Levin (North Island), being allocated service number NZ404382.
On the December 27, 1940, Don was posted to No.4 Elementary Flying Training School at RNZAF Whenuapai (North Island) where he learned to fly on Tiger Moths. He moved to No.1 Service Flying Training School (SFTS) at Wigram (South Island) on February 9, 1941, where he flew Avro Type 626 and Fairey Gordon biplanes. On completing the first half of his course with the Initial Training Squadron, he received his “wings” on April 1, 1941. He then trained in the Advanced Training Squadron, and being selected to fly multi-engine aircraft, flew the twin engine Airspeed Oxford. On completion of the course on the May 3, 1941, he was given the rank of sergeant.
On the May 14, Don, and a small group of other servicemen bound for overseas duty, were given a rousing farewell function in the Town Hall, Cambridge. By May 26 he was on a ship bound for Canada, which he then crossed and sailed for Britain. July 3, 1941, saw Don at No.3 Personnel Reception Centre, Bournemouth, and soon after he was being given some refresher flying training.
At this point it seems the air force decided to redirect Don (probably much to his delight) to fly single-engine fighters. He was posted to No.9 SFTS at Hullavington, Wiltshire, where he flew two-seater single engine Miles Masters. The school had a number of Hawker Hurricanes which pupils, probably including Donald, used towards the end of their course. Don was then posted to No 61 OTU, Heston.
At the time of his crash Don had flown just nine hours on Spitfires but had flown 196 hours altogether. No two seater Spitfires existed so on your first flight there was no instructor guidance or backup to help fly these powerful fighting machines.
The Fighter OTU course involved formation flying, emergency takeoffs, air firing, tactics, aircraft recognition and elocution for speaking over the radio (R/T). Inevitably, it also included practising aerial manoeuvres and mock dogfights, dangerous even for experienced pilots. Sources put the death rate in flying training between a third and a half of all RAF flying fatalities.
Another hazardous factor for the trainees was that the aircraft they used were old hand-me-down battle-weary examples. Don’s Spitfire was a Mk.Ia Serial No.X4544. It was first allocated on September 27, 1940, to No.72 Squadron (Sqd) at Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain. During a “scramble” on October 5, it was involved in an airborne collision with another Spitfire (K9989) which crashed killing the pilot. The pilot of X4544, Sgt Staples, managed to land safely and the aircraft was then sent for repair. On May 15, 1941, it was allocated to No.123 Squadron at Turnhouse, Midlothian, and on October 14 it was assigned to No.61 OTU.
In his last letter home of the October 15/16 Don wrote: “The other day I flew my Spitfire up to 25,000 feet. I couldn’t see the ground and it seemed just as if I were in space”. “You ought to see me sitting in my Spitfire. You get a wonderful thrill flying these machines”. He talks about any of the little spare time he has being spent writing to his parents and Natalie (his fiancee) and finishes saying that “…Natalie and I are going to (be) married the day I get back. I wonder how far away that day is?”
At the time of his death, Don’s older brother Ken was in Britain at No.23 OTU, Bomber Command, RAF Pershore, Worcestershire, training to fly Wellington bombers operationally. He went on to have a distinguished career and survived the war (for details see "Wings Over Cambridge" web site at http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz ). Don’s younger brother Eric joined the RNZAF in 1944 training to become a fighter pilot in New Zealand.
In his letter home to his family of October 24, Ken says that he only wishes he was “home with you all to comfort you”. He had wished to telegraph them when he heard of Don’s death but had been advised to let the Air Force do this to avoid confusion. In London he had a “nice wreath made and put on the card that it was in loving memory from all of us”.
Ken attended Don’s funeral, which was held on Thursday, October 23, at Hounslow and Isleworth Cemetery, Hounslow, (Plot D, Row D, Grave 3). Another NZ pilot, Sgt. Charles McCullough, aged 21, who died on October 20, was buried at the same service.
Describing the funeral, he says it was most impressive with flags over the coffins and several wreaths for each of the dead men. A 20-man air-force band played at the front of the cortege followed by a 30-strong guard of honour, then the hearses with 12 NZ pall bearers (all friends of the deceased men) walking alongside. Behind came Ken, the Commanding Officer (CO) and the rest of the mourners. Some civilian mourners were present at the graveside. There was a short service in the cemetery chapel and then the committal with three shots being fired over the graves and Last Post sounded. Ken and then the CO went up to the grave and saluted.
The letter continues saying he knows that the family would be glad that he, as a family member, had been able to attended the funeral (probably rare for an overseas pilot fatality) although he said “…it took a lot of doing”. He notes that Don is buried “amongst a number of other graves of other Air Force boys who have lost their lives in the same way”. Continuing he says that it is best to remember that Don “is at rest in peace and we are all proud of him”, and that “he laid down his life that we may all live”.
Don and his fiancee Natalie Buckrell were very much in love and became engaged just before her 18th birthday. Don wanted them to get married before he left New Zealand but, despite support from Don’s parents, Natalies’ father absolutely forbade it. More than 65 years later, via e-mail, Natalie has described how she felt when Don died “All the myriad plans we had for our lives together after the war, went asunder”. Don was killed 6 days before Natalie's 19th birthday.
A few years later Natalie married a US Marine and went to live in America. Now widowed, she says “I think that I imagined that escaping to a new life in a faraway land would ease the pain of losing Don, but it did not”. Since his wartime death there hasn’t been a single day when she hasn’t thought of her beloved Don and has the photograph of him “on my ‘stored’ page (of her computer), so that I can look at it every day”.
Perhaps we in Guildford can now remember this, until now, forgotten young man who felt he should volunteer to come half way round the world to help defend this country. At present there is an unnamed lane that leads from Moorfield Road to Stoke Lock cottage past where he crashed. I would suggest that it would be fitting for it to be named in his memory.
This article grew from a short half page section in “Guildford: The War Years” by Graham Collyer and David Rose.
Some of the information for this article has come from Dave Homewood’s " Wings Over Cambridge" NZ website set up in tribute to airmen from the town. Pam O'Connor (Ken’s daughter) and Don's fiancee, Natalie Bayer nee Buckrell, both contributed letters, photographs and information.
Other information has come from the National Archives, Kew, the RAF Museum, Hendon, the RNZAF Museum, Christchurch and the Surrey History Centre, Woking.
I would also like to thank the witnesses I have spoken to, David Rose of the Surrey Advertiser, Sarah Mercer of the St. John’s Ambulance and Karen Robinson for composing assistance.
He was researching the story of a Spitfire that had crashed in Guildford, killing the pilot during the War.
He asked me if I could take an aerial photo of the crash site which would be published in our local paper [Surrey Advertiser] along with the story.
He said he could not afford to pay a significant amount as he was a retired Pentioner. I replied, telling him I was a big Aviation fan and would gladly do it free of charge.
We arranged to meet at some waste land near to the site. I had recently bought a Parkzone Spitfire, which I could not resist bringing along!
I flew a couple of Sorties with my EZ*/Nikon 7900 combination, achieving the required results at the second attempt.
Once the work was over it was time for a play with the Spitfire! I flew a few low passes for Frank to get some shots. Luckilly this Spit stayed Sunny side up....
When I looked at the article in the Paper, I was supprised to see they included a photo of my Spitfire!
The story was printed in two parts. Unfortunatly I missed the first part.
Frank [the Author] has sent me the complete story and given me permission to post it here.
All word below are by Frank Phillipson.
SLYFIELD GREEN SPITFIRE CRASH
Just before midday on Sunday 19th October 1941, an RAF Mk.Ia Spitfire, piloted by Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) Sergeant Donald Newsham Law, was practising aerial manoeuvres north of Guildford. He had taken off from RAF Heston (west of London) where he was receiving instruction with No.61 Operational Training Unit (OTU) Fighter Command.
Without warning his aircraft went into a power dive and crashed into the sewage filter beds east of Slyfield Green in the vicinity of what is now the main building of todays Moorfield Road waste transfer station. Sgt. Law would have been killed instantly when the aircraft hit the ground at such high speed.
There were a number of eye witnesses to the crash. Thomas Cribb (sadly recently deceased), at home on leave from a north-eastern Anti-Aircraft gun site, was digging the garden at No.2 Woodlands Road. He described hearing an aircraft diving and turning for about 10 minutes above the clouds. Suddenly it appeared out of the clouds in a 45 degree engine screaming power dive, ending abruptly in a terrific earth shaking thump. He ran straight to the crash site arriving before any of the authorities and found the aircraft with its nose buried into one of the filter beds.
He didn't go near the aircraft as it was quite obvious that the pilot must have been killed instantly but he could see the cockpit section of the fuselage with the canopy/hood burst open and the pilot’s parachute hanging out. There was no fire, just slight wisps of smoke rising from the hot engine now cooling down. In the general vicinity there was a lot of ammunition strewn about. He threw as much as he could see into the filter bed for safety as children began to arrive attracted by the crash. After about an hour he decided to return home.
Another witness, Basil Colborne, then living in Burpham, made his way in the direction of the crash site and says he saw the remains of the aircraft in the filter beds. He watched as a rescue team recovered the pilots body wrapped in his parachute.
Douglas Graham, aged six at the time, remembers the very loud sound of the aircraft flying over his home at No.31 Woodlands Road and thought it was going to hit the chimneys. He says that the aircraft, when seen later from a distance, was lying among some bullrushes.
Bob Ward recalls the tremendous thump of the crash. He and some of his mates made their way to the crash site and saw the remains of the aircraft with it’s nose buried at 45 degrees into the ground with just the cockpit section visible. The fuselage behind this point was missing.
Bill Lamy (an young evacuee living in the Merrow Woods area at the time) says that he and his friend went to see the crash site. He remembers feeling rather disappointed that all there was to see was just the damaged cockpit section of the fuselage plonked down in the filter bed. There seemed to be no wings or tail that they could see from their vantage point.
Ron Shettle was at Guildford Fire Station, Ladymead and heard the high-pitched noise of the Spitfire’s engine. He looked up and saw it dive vertically and with a loud thump crash into the Slyfield Green area. He raised the alarm with the firemen who went out to the scene. When they returned they told him that the Spitfire had crashed into the filter beds.
If the pilots parachute was hanging out of the cockpit, it might indicate that Sgt. Law regained consciousness and made a last-minute attempt to bale out. As he sat on his parachute pack he would have had to release his cockpit harness first. If the ripcord was then accidentally pulled or snagged, the parachute canopy could have been sucked out of the aircraft by the airflow. It is unlikely that he would have been able to get free of the cockpit in any event due to the high speed of the dive.
A number of witnesses say that they were stopped by the police from getting close to the scene because of ammunition exploding due to fire. However the RAF Accident Record Card (ARC) reports that there was no fire either in the air or upon impact. It may be that later on leaked aviation fuel caught alight or that some detached sections of the aircraft caught fire.
The area just to the north of the crash site was used at the time as the Council rubbish dump and to the local children it became known as "Spitfire Dump". Witnesses say that the RAF recovered the remains of the aircraft a few days later.
The St John Ambulance log for the 19th October 1941 records that Superintendent Rutter and Private Swain attended the aeroplane crash at the " Sewerage Farm, Stoke". They were responding to a police call and eventually conveyed Sgt. Law’s body to the Guildford Mortuary, Millbrook.
The Operational Record Book for No.61 OTU reports the following for the 19th October 1941 "Weather fine with a strong N.W. wind". "Three accidents today, one fatal...." "Fatal accident appears, according to a civil eyewitness account, to have happened when NZ Sgt. pupil Law failed to recover normal flying position after looping".
The ARC says that Sgt. Law was flying at 2000 to 2500 feet altitude and that he was practising "FL (Forced Landing) approaches and slow rolls". It goes on to say that he "Crashed many miles S. of Heston whereas flt (flight) was auth.(authorised) for an area N. of the (aero) drome."
The Court of Inquiry into the crash stated that Sgt. Law "Failed to recover from dive which apparently started at the end of a turn left or hit a very heavy downdraught and possibly rendered unconscious by striking his head on hood."
The South East Region Civil Defence Summary dated 20th October 1941 refers to the crash site under the section titled "Grounded Aircraft" and states "British single seat fighter, wrecked at Punt Field, Slyfield Green, Guildford, at 11:40 hours 19th October. Pilot killed". "Punt Field" is shown on the 1842 Stoke Tithe Map as a field, which by 1941 was the largest area of rectangular filter beds, between the River Wey to the south east and the path/track surrounding it to the west and north.
Donald (Don) Law was born at Gisborne on New Zealand’s North Island on the May 26, 1918, to Albert John (a bank clerk) and Ivy Juanita Law. The family eventually settled in Cambridge in the centre of the North Island. He was very good at rugby and also played football, tennis and golf. He left school at 16 and worked for the Bank of New South Wales at various branches on the North Island until he joined the RNZAF.
When the Second World War started, Don wanted to “do his bit”. Seeing an article calling for young men to join up as aircrew, on September 28, 1939, he applied to join the RNZAF. On his application form he mentioned that he had experienced a 15-minute flight, probably a local joyride. In the interim he joined the NZ Territorial Army as a private. Not hearing anything about his application he wrote to the NZ Air Secretary asking if he could join the Fleet Air Arm instead. However, on November 24, 1940, he was eventually enlisted at the Ground Training Squadron at RNZAF Levin (North Island), being allocated service number NZ404382.
On the December 27, 1940, Don was posted to No.4 Elementary Flying Training School at RNZAF Whenuapai (North Island) where he learned to fly on Tiger Moths. He moved to No.1 Service Flying Training School (SFTS) at Wigram (South Island) on February 9, 1941, where he flew Avro Type 626 and Fairey Gordon biplanes. On completing the first half of his course with the Initial Training Squadron, he received his “wings” on April 1, 1941. He then trained in the Advanced Training Squadron, and being selected to fly multi-engine aircraft, flew the twin engine Airspeed Oxford. On completion of the course on the May 3, 1941, he was given the rank of sergeant.
On the May 14, Don, and a small group of other servicemen bound for overseas duty, were given a rousing farewell function in the Town Hall, Cambridge. By May 26 he was on a ship bound for Canada, which he then crossed and sailed for Britain. July 3, 1941, saw Don at No.3 Personnel Reception Centre, Bournemouth, and soon after he was being given some refresher flying training.
At this point it seems the air force decided to redirect Don (probably much to his delight) to fly single-engine fighters. He was posted to No.9 SFTS at Hullavington, Wiltshire, where he flew two-seater single engine Miles Masters. The school had a number of Hawker Hurricanes which pupils, probably including Donald, used towards the end of their course. Don was then posted to No 61 OTU, Heston.
At the time of his crash Don had flown just nine hours on Spitfires but had flown 196 hours altogether. No two seater Spitfires existed so on your first flight there was no instructor guidance or backup to help fly these powerful fighting machines.
The Fighter OTU course involved formation flying, emergency takeoffs, air firing, tactics, aircraft recognition and elocution for speaking over the radio (R/T). Inevitably, it also included practising aerial manoeuvres and mock dogfights, dangerous even for experienced pilots. Sources put the death rate in flying training between a third and a half of all RAF flying fatalities.
Another hazardous factor for the trainees was that the aircraft they used were old hand-me-down battle-weary examples. Don’s Spitfire was a Mk.Ia Serial No.X4544. It was first allocated on September 27, 1940, to No.72 Squadron (Sqd) at Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain. During a “scramble” on October 5, it was involved in an airborne collision with another Spitfire (K9989) which crashed killing the pilot. The pilot of X4544, Sgt Staples, managed to land safely and the aircraft was then sent for repair. On May 15, 1941, it was allocated to No.123 Squadron at Turnhouse, Midlothian, and on October 14 it was assigned to No.61 OTU.
In his last letter home of the October 15/16 Don wrote: “The other day I flew my Spitfire up to 25,000 feet. I couldn’t see the ground and it seemed just as if I were in space”. “You ought to see me sitting in my Spitfire. You get a wonderful thrill flying these machines”. He talks about any of the little spare time he has being spent writing to his parents and Natalie (his fiancee) and finishes saying that “…Natalie and I are going to (be) married the day I get back. I wonder how far away that day is?”
At the time of his death, Don’s older brother Ken was in Britain at No.23 OTU, Bomber Command, RAF Pershore, Worcestershire, training to fly Wellington bombers operationally. He went on to have a distinguished career and survived the war (for details see "Wings Over Cambridge" web site at http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz ). Don’s younger brother Eric joined the RNZAF in 1944 training to become a fighter pilot in New Zealand.
In his letter home to his family of October 24, Ken says that he only wishes he was “home with you all to comfort you”. He had wished to telegraph them when he heard of Don’s death but had been advised to let the Air Force do this to avoid confusion. In London he had a “nice wreath made and put on the card that it was in loving memory from all of us”.
Ken attended Don’s funeral, which was held on Thursday, October 23, at Hounslow and Isleworth Cemetery, Hounslow, (Plot D, Row D, Grave 3). Another NZ pilot, Sgt. Charles McCullough, aged 21, who died on October 20, was buried at the same service.
Describing the funeral, he says it was most impressive with flags over the coffins and several wreaths for each of the dead men. A 20-man air-force band played at the front of the cortege followed by a 30-strong guard of honour, then the hearses with 12 NZ pall bearers (all friends of the deceased men) walking alongside. Behind came Ken, the Commanding Officer (CO) and the rest of the mourners. Some civilian mourners were present at the graveside. There was a short service in the cemetery chapel and then the committal with three shots being fired over the graves and Last Post sounded. Ken and then the CO went up to the grave and saluted.
The letter continues saying he knows that the family would be glad that he, as a family member, had been able to attended the funeral (probably rare for an overseas pilot fatality) although he said “…it took a lot of doing”. He notes that Don is buried “amongst a number of other graves of other Air Force boys who have lost their lives in the same way”. Continuing he says that it is best to remember that Don “is at rest in peace and we are all proud of him”, and that “he laid down his life that we may all live”.
Don and his fiancee Natalie Buckrell were very much in love and became engaged just before her 18th birthday. Don wanted them to get married before he left New Zealand but, despite support from Don’s parents, Natalies’ father absolutely forbade it. More than 65 years later, via e-mail, Natalie has described how she felt when Don died “All the myriad plans we had for our lives together after the war, went asunder”. Don was killed 6 days before Natalie's 19th birthday.
A few years later Natalie married a US Marine and went to live in America. Now widowed, she says “I think that I imagined that escaping to a new life in a faraway land would ease the pain of losing Don, but it did not”. Since his wartime death there hasn’t been a single day when she hasn’t thought of her beloved Don and has the photograph of him “on my ‘stored’ page (of her computer), so that I can look at it every day”.
Perhaps we in Guildford can now remember this, until now, forgotten young man who felt he should volunteer to come half way round the world to help defend this country. At present there is an unnamed lane that leads from Moorfield Road to Stoke Lock cottage past where he crashed. I would suggest that it would be fitting for it to be named in his memory.
This article grew from a short half page section in “Guildford: The War Years” by Graham Collyer and David Rose.
Some of the information for this article has come from Dave Homewood’s " Wings Over Cambridge" NZ website set up in tribute to airmen from the town. Pam O'Connor (Ken’s daughter) and Don's fiancee, Natalie Bayer nee Buckrell, both contributed letters, photographs and information.
Other information has come from the National Archives, Kew, the RAF Museum, Hendon, the RNZAF Museum, Christchurch and the Surrey History Centre, Woking.
I would also like to thank the witnesses I have spoken to, David Rose of the Surrey Advertiser, Sarah Mercer of the St. John’s Ambulance and Karen Robinson for composing assistance.