This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this siteplease consider making a donation.
Site Home
WW2 Home
Add Stories
WW2 Search
Library
Help & FAQs
WW2 Features
Airfields
Allied Army
Allied Air Forces
Allied Navy
Axis Forces
Home Front
Battles
Prisoners of War
Allied Ships
Women at War
Those Who Served
Day-by-Day
Library
The Great War
Submissions
Add Stories
Time Capsule
TWMP on Facebook
Childrens Bookshop
FAQ's
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Volunteering
Contact us
News
Bookshop
About
1206142F/O. Thomas Donald McKinlay Gordon
Royal Air Force 196 Squadron
from:Gorebridge, Midlothian
(d.26th Feb 1943)
Tom Gordon was my only uncle but sadly he was killed 5 years before I was born. He was a navigator in 196 Squadron and was in a Wellington X bomber serial BE161 code ZO when it crashed near Middleton on the Wold, Yorkshire on 26 February 1943. There were no survivors. The only other name from the flight that I have found is a Sergeant G.A.A. Ranken.I have found it extremely difficult to ascertain whether Tom and his fellow crew members were embarking or returning from an operation or whether it was a training flight but there is a suggestion that an unsecured piece of canvas blew out of the bomb bay and lodged in the tail ailerons.
I have plenty of photographs of Tom including some taken during his training in South Africa on Avro Ansons that I would be pleased to post if anyone was interested.
Editors Note: Flying Officer Thomas Donald McKinlay Gordon served with 196 Squadron Royal Air Force during WW2 and was killed on the 26th February 1943.
The squadron was operating from RAF Leconfield, East Riding of Yorkshire from December 1942 to July 1943.
Crew List:
- Ranken, George Alexander Aitken (1052516) RAFVR; age: 21 Sgt
- Robinson, Walter (1073018) RAFVR; age: 32 LAC
- Gordon, Thomas Donald (120884) RAFVR; age: 22 Fg Off
- Herbert, Dennis (1425487) RAFVR; age: 19 Sgt
- Smart, Nevill (124547) RAFVR; age: n/k Fg Off
- Bernick, Lloyd Adolf (R/62500) RCAF; age: 21 WO II
Middleton on the Wolds is in East Yorkshire near Driffield. The aircraft crashed at 1210 hrs some 2 miles E of Middleton-on-the-Wolds, 7 miles SW of Great Driffield, Yorkshire, exploding on impact. The accident was attributable to the canvas bomb screen detaching and fouling the elevator control surfaces. This was apparently during an aircraft test flight.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area?
If so please let us know.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items.
The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved
We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.