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Registration
or Serial: MM244
Operator:
Royal Air Force
(16 Group; 544 Squadron; PRU (Photographic Reconnaissance Unit))
Operating Base:
RAF Benson
Base
Location Benson;
c. 9 miles SE of Oxford, or
c. 12 miles NW of Reading,
Oxfordshire.
Current
Airport Status: Operational
Military Airport
Current
Airport Name:
RAF Benson (EGUB)
(Principal airport data courtesy of
John Woodside,
A
Catalogue of UK Airfields)
Aircraft Nicknames:
The Wooden Wonder; Mossie.
Aircraft Type & Background
The de
Havilland Mosquito was a multi-role combat aircraft which ranged
from fighter to bomber to photographic reconnaissance types.
Mosquitoes
were equipped with two Rolls-Royce Merlin in-line piston engines. The B IV type could fly at 380mph.
The
fuselage and wings of the Mosquito were made largely of wood.
This permitted construction of these parts to be sub-contracted to
furniture manufacturers and piano builders, thereby relieving the
strain on the overstretched conventional aircraft industry.
The first
Mosquitoes to enter service with the RAF were the photo
reconnaissance types (PR.34s). It was one of this type which crashed at
Corryfoyness in the Scottish Highlands.
Aircraft Accident Details
Mosquito
PR.34 (Photo-Reconnaissance 34)
MM244 was on a squadron training flight, together with six other
Mosquitoes. They had been instructed to fly out to a rock off the NW
coast of Scotland and fly back.
It was extremely bad
weather. Maybe one or two Mosquitoes returned to their base at RAF
Benson; the rest had all sorts of problems and diverted to other
airfields. Mosquito MM244 lost first one engine; and then, a little
while later, the next.
The Navigator, F/O Alex
Barron, went out of the aircraft first and landed on one side of
Loch Ness. The Pilot, F/Lt Joe Burfield, landed in thick bush land
on the other side. The
aircraft continued to glide for a short distance, before
impacting a hillside nor far from the loch.
After landing, F/Lt Burfield eventually found
an old farmer who took him to the local police station in a horse
and cart. Because neither of them could barely understand a word the
other was saying (Australian v Scots accents), the farmer
treated this large (6' 4") man in a flying suit with the gravest
suspicion and had a shotgun within reach all the way.
The crew
of the aircraft were:
-
F/Lt
Joe Burfield
DFC, Pilot, RAAF.
-
F/O
Alexander Barron DFM, Navigator, RAF.
Together
with his Australian pilot F/Lt Burfield, F/O Barron continued to
serve with the RAF in the European theatre of war until 1945.
F/Lt Joe Burfield had left Australia on a ship carrying mutton early
in 1942, eventually arriving in Liverpool after sailing in convoy
through the Panama Canal and on to New York. He returned to
Australia in 1946. Of the 10 RAAF aircrew on the mutton boat who
left Australia, he was the only one to return.
F/Lt Burfield passed away in 1995, aged 80.
F/O Barron retired from the RAF in 1947, and passed away in 2000.
For more
details on F/Lt Burfield & F/O Barron's service,
please see the entry by Neil Barron on the BBC's
WW2 People's War website.
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Accident Date
25 November 1943
Accident
Site
Corryfoyness
(nr. Great Glen Way)
Region: Highland
(Moray)
Nearest
town or village:
Achmony
or Drumnadrochit
(by Loch Ness)
OS Grid Ref:
N/A Present Condition
After the recovery of the two
power plants, etc., much of the remaining aircraft wreckage
was buried onsite. Some fragmented remains are to be found
on or near the surface and scattered across the surrounding
hillside. However, finding individual wreckage fragments is
made rather difficult since the crash site is located within a
forested area.
Related Links
General information on de
Havilland Mosquito aircraft can be found at:
RAF Links
Forums, Organisations, &
Societies
Museums
Other Links
Author: Ron Foster, DFC, Croix de
Guerre.
BELOW: A Mosquito B (bomber) Mk. XVI in flight
Photo [pre-1957] Taken by an
employee of the UK government. Photo now in the public
domain.
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