'B26 Marauder'

On 8th March 1944

Two B26 Aircraft of the the

USAAF 9th Airforce

344th Bomb Group 494th Bomb Squadron

from

  USAAF Stantead, Essex, England.

Collided in mid air over the village of

 Theydon Mount, Essex, England.

This incident was the first time any lives had been lost by the 344th BG.

This was only their 3rd mission since arriving in Britain

info@aviationmuseum.co.uk

344th Bomb Group History

READS AS FOLLOWS;

"Our third mission was pressed against an airfield in Holland on the 8th March 1944, fifty four planes took of for Soesterberg.

Weather that day over north eastern England was cloudy, the ceiling being quite low. Join-up procedure was difficult because of poor visibility.

During this procedure our Group suffered its first major accident, when two

of our Marauders collided in mid-air as one of them emerged from the clouds.

 Both of these planes plummeted to earth carrying all of the personnel to

 their deaths.

The others proceeded to the target as briefed, dropping 571 x 100lb.

bombs and 49x500lb. bombs, photographic interpretation showing

very good results. The Soesterberg mission brought intense flak from

enemy ground defences and fourteen aircraft were hit, causing minor

damage but no losses to crews or planes."

All crew members perished in this incident

1st Lt. John K. Eckert; Pilot.

2nd Lt. Thomas W. Worrell; Co-Pilot.

1st Lt. George E. Bair; Bombardier.

S/sgt. Alfred R Border; Engineer/Gunner.

S/sgt. Lewis O.Thompson; Radio/Gunner.

S/sgt. Edward J. Powell; Armourer/Gunner.

THE RECOVERY OF JOHN. K. ECKERT'S AIRCRAFT

On the 22nd & 23rd February 1975 that the excavation of the Marauder

42-95981 was to be carried out over the Saturday and Sunday to allow us to

have plenty of time to remove what had been buried below the surface of the

wheat field without damaging or loosing any of the smaller finds as this was

our first multi engine aircraft preceding this we had only excavated single

engine fighters.

On the Saturday the Digger failed to arrive at the crash site due to a puncture,

now we were going to have to cram this excavation into just the Sunday only

for the rest of Saturday it was back to the shovels and spades.

We started bright and early around 7.30 am, we had dug down on the

Saturday by hand to a depth of around 4 ft by 6ft wide (1.2m+ 1.6m) and had

hit solid aircraft so we new exactly where to dig, Kurt our digger driver an

ex German P.O.W  would you believe arrived with the puncture fixed bright and

 early Sunday morning, so by 8 am we started digging at last !

Items found included;

One Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine,

1 Bendix-Stromberg Carburettor, O

One .5 calibre Browning machine gun, and a mass of wreckage all from one

side of the aircraft included were many smaller parts bagged up but not sorted

so by late afternoon and with the light failing it was decided to shut down the

excavation this was done with great sadness as we new we had needed more

time to check the spoil heaps, the hole was filled in and the topsoil

reinstated.

More information and photos published soon