England 1944. A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

Some fifteen miles North of London there are two small parishes, Waltham Cross and Cheshunt, two separate names but almost as one. On the 12 August 1944 just before 0800 hrs a B24 Liberator 42-95023 (a/c #023) bomber from the 392nd B/G appeared from the South, very low just below the cloud ceiling which was about 2000 feet or less, it passed over Bullsmoor Lane (Ref Grace Millest), south of Waltham Cross (about two plus miles from where it crash) travelling north-east the bomber was making a terrible noise the engines appeared to be starting and stopping with black smoke and flames trailing from them and flying in a swooping motion, to understand the reason for this noise and smoke it is best watch  the Start Up on You Tube of the B24-B17 and B25 to understand what the people were experiencing, watching this B24 not just one engine starting but all four engines set on full rich at the same time, the pilot 2/LT J. D. Ellis and co-pilot F/O S.C. Stalsby had a desperate malfunction condition with all four engines to cope with. (This was not a one off on the 27 August 1943 a B-24H Liberator crashed with an almost identical fault)  the Ellis B24 flew on the east side of the main road though Waltham Cross and on to Cheshunt, “I was in Leven Drive at this time and no aircraft passed west of me,  the Poplar Trees that lined the Cambridge Arterial  Road were visible at 640 yds, so the Liberator must have passed on the east side of me” before making a left turn close to Hillside Avenue (Ref Mrs. D P Atkinson) and then coming down on Maxwell’s Farm, Lat 51.6964-Long 0.0456, this is basically what happened on Saturday the 12 August 1944.

There are so many versions of this tragic event.  It just fell out of the clouds into the ground and blew up, lost its tail etc, all very similar accounts of this crash, even observations from other Liberators flying with Ellis reported, Larson (a/c #480) no chutes seen, plane went into clouds at 10,000ft, Pierce (a/c #194) kept going down in a spin, Sewell (a/c #272) b24 spun in, no chutes, Scharf (a/c #511) Ellis plane went into spin W of London, tail was seen to tear apart, may have iced up, Haines ( a/c #697) three chutes out of 023 at London, Muldoon ( a/c#548) nose high no chutes.

There is one true fact about this crash and this cannot be challenged, fireman George Chapman had received a phone call about the crash first, then drove his vehicle and trailer from Gew’s Corner to Maxwell’s Farm, over one mile away, and ran out a 30ft hose before the Liberator blew up, this must have taken at-least fifteen minutes, so it did not crash and explode all at one time as so many people have reported.

I will attempt to clear up much of the misinformation. After the crash there was a collection made for the families of the crew of this Liberator, part of this collection was set aside for two memorial plaques to be made, for their gallantry in avoiding homes in the two villages of Waltham Cross and Cheshunt, one Plaque is in the Library at Cheshunt, and the other is on the wall of the administration building at the US National Cemetery, at Madingley Cambridge, so I have always thought  there is more to this crash than is known, Even in Peter Rooke’s Book, Cheshunt At War he found it hard to sift out versions of this crash, and that some people would be disappointed at not being included in his book, and I still find this today that the information some people give to me is not safe, as they were too Young at the time and some lived to far away from the crash,  if you drive to the locations of the information given you find it was not possible to see what was said, taking into account how the lay out was in Cheshunt August 1944, but still today articles are been printed that are made up and not true, also the midair collision with a B17 was not possible I will go into this later.

First my account of that morning Saturday 12 August 1944 at 0800 hrs a very dreary morning very low cloud 10/10s the amount of cloud made it very quiet, and suppressed any noise, for some reason something made me look up  not sure what but just the other side of Cedars Park to the North-West there was a fire very black smoke just a fire I thought, but I looked back and it had become a very big fire,  being a nosey young boy I made my way up to the Cambridge Arterial Road, and on my way looking over to the right, the fire had become immense we had a Westerly strong breeze the smoke was so dense that some of it was dropping to the ground just as you would see rain falling from very bad storm clouds, when I got to the top of Park Lane there was at that time some old farm workers cottages with some people outside one said don’t go down there, but I needed to see what the fire was,  the road was lined with Lombard poplar trees and planted very close together all about 100ft tall, and planted each side of the road, so I had to run down towards the fire to get a better view I reached about 800 yds  from the fire and could see what appeared to be the end of a wing sticking out from the fire, the rest was just one big black fierce fire, crackling like mad, then there was two low explosions which may have be oxygen cylinders, then a poof of air and the whole thing exploded it was very strange, “the explosion” from intense black smoke it was now a white smoke mixed with Gray smoke lower down all this vitriol black smoke had gone it must have been well over several hundred feet high  and appeared to have a boiling motion to it, there were large and small pieces of aluminum coming out of the top of this boiling white mass and dropping back in, again and again this continued for some time I can only describe it as looking at a disco silver globe shrouded with white smoke, as quick as it came it was going some small pieces of debris were falling close by so I was off, when I got back to the cottages there was a woman with a small child that was crying she said you silly boy but kept running back home.

The next day I went down to Theobald’s Lane and looked across to the crash site there was a lot of activity going on, the crash recovery team had arrived to collect and remove all the remains of the b24, the orchard on the east side of the road had a lot of the bomber and its occupants hanging in the fruit trees. For a very long time after the crash, if you had to pass the crater at Maxwell’s Farm and it had been raining, it would fill with water and you could smell the acrid fumes coming from it. I will not discuss the aftermath of this, for in the early part of the nineteen-fifties I was in the RAF “North Weald” and had to attended a few crash sites “DH Vampire’s and Gloster Meteor F8s” and it is not a place to be.

Fireman George Chapman at the scene of the crash (Copyright Lowewood Museum)

Sometime during the next week uncle George called in to see my mum, he had a news paper with him, he asked mum if she had heard about the American bomber that had blown up she said yes, uncle gave the paper to her and said  that’s me at the crash site after it exploded,  then proceeded to tell my mum what had happened, he went on when I arrived it was well alight the road had parts of the aeroplane on it, a nurse came running up and said I have seen some of the airman but they are not moving.
This nurse that spoke to Uncle George may have been the Army Nurse, Medical Corps, billeted in Cromwell Avenue, Cheshunt, and could have been going or coming back from work at the Italian POW Camp No1003 in Bullsmoor Lane, this was not far from the crash site, at a later date it is known that this nurse wrote to the family of T/Sgt Stanley Jankowski a member of the b24 crew.
 

George said do not go back it may blow up at any time, he then run out the first 30ft canvas fire hose from the trailer, went back to pick up the next hose when the bomber blew up, it blew him under the fire trailer and that he said saved his life, my mum asked George about the airmen and his reply was all blown to pieces, body parts all over the place, identification must have been virtually impossible. When the two US ambulances arrived, George checked with the NCO then informed the Policeman on a Motorbike Mr Brown to contact the fire station if there was a problem.
In response to a telephone message from Station Operations, Two ambulances were dispatched from AAF Bovingdon Station 112 to report to scene of crash. To collect the remains of the crew, ( a report was filed of the crash scene ). Fragmented and burned remains of personnel of the aircraft were collected from an area approximately 200 yards in diameter surrounding the crash site of the exploded B-24 aircraft, four separate identification tags were found, no recognition of the bodies was possible at this time,  all the collected remains approximately eight individuals were transported directly from scene of crash to the American Military Cemetery, Madingly. Cambridge for identification and burial.
No identification was accomplished by personnel of this command.
This was a repeat of the B-17 “Tomahawk Warrior” Recovery, at Lude Farm, High Wycombe, a extremely difficult and stressful situation for the recovery team, two in a very short time all in one day.

McGinley / Holling / Jankowski / Shaffer, were all buried together, as no individual identification could be determined, at a later date part of S/Sgt  Shaffer was identified by a dental record. The only recoverable remains left were listed as McGinley, Holling and Jankowski were returned to the US on the 26 April 1949 for group burial.
 
Pilot          2nd Lt Ellis, John D.       buried     E-1-98, US National Cemetery, Madingley, Cambridge.   born   00-00-1915.
 
Co-Pilot    F/O Stalsby, Samuel C.  buried   Alexandria National Cemetery, Louisiana.                          born   31 March 1922.
 
Navigator  2nd Lt Cox, Robert R.    buried    E-1-88, US National Cemetery, Madingley, Cambridge.    born  11  Nov   1916.
 
Engineer    T/Sgt   Jankowski, Stanley F.       Group Burial Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, Jefferson County, Kentucky.  born  9 Nov 1915.
 
Radio Operator, T/Sgt Holling, John H.         Group Burial Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, Jefferson County, Kentucky.  born  10 Aug 1923
 
Gunner      S/Sgt  Hultengren, Clare W.  buried     Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minnesota.                 born  6 June 1922
 
Gunner     S/Sgt  Minick, Frank Jr.        buried    E-3-78,  US National Cemetery, Madingley, Cambridge. born 00-00-1923.
 
Gunner     S/Sgt  Cable, Jay V.              buried   Mt Vernon Cemetery, Buena Vista.                                   born 13 Feb 1923.
 
Gunner     S/Sgt Shaeffer, Jack O.         buried   Kittaning Cemetery, Kittaning, Pennsylvania.                       born 11 Feb 1924.
 
Gunner     S/Sgt McGinley, William C.   Group Burial Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, Jefferson County, Kentucky.   born 00-00-1923.

In Peter Rooke’s book he has it that the land girls had to collect human remains before they could start work on threshing the stacks.

At the time of the crash the Maxwell’s dog went missing, some two months later while potatoes were being lifted some distance from the crash site, they found the decomposed body of the dog as they thought, but it turned out to be the torso of one of the crew, this torso was never identified and is now in a Group Burial in Kentucky, USA.

If the nurse had a visual of the cockpit and was able to see some of the crew then the bomber was still heading West into wind it had not changed direction from the last sighting, the fire and smoke was going towards the tail end and across the road, Ellis had chosen one of only two places where he could land, the only other place was Oyler’s Farm some 800 yds to his left, I would suggest that he was committed to the Maxwell field but miss- judged the poplar trees and that is what took off the tail stabilizers in turn caused a heavy crash landing. The last thing that the pilot and copilot would have seen in the distance would have been the historic land mark of the “Temple Bar Gateway”, coming up fast only 1320 yards away from them.
Temple Bar was visited by many US personal and there girlfriends prior to the invasion, and most would have left there initials on the wooden gates, as many of us had done in the past, Temple Bar has now been dismantled restored and moved back to London.
Uncle George was of the opinion that the right wing was mangled in the ground but this may not have been the poplar trees that lined the west side of the road, four of these trees opposite to the crash site were reduced to bare skeletons and never did recover.

The speculation of a midair with a B-17, G-35-DL, 42-107191 ”Tomahawk Warrior” from the 398 BG on Assembly was not possible. Tomahawk Warrior took off at 0618 from Nuthampstead south of Royston, was to head to “Splasher” #6 (this was then changed just before Mission-76, to “Splasher #11″ a different radio beacon), this was situated at Haben Farm 1 mile South of Rogate in Hampshire, #6 a radio beacon at Frenze Hall on the edge of Diss Suffolk which is just over fifty miles North East from its base for group assembly, it appears this did not happen, because at 0700 this B17 was seen over High Wycombe forty-two miles SW from Nuthampstead its Base, with one engine on fire shortly after a second engine fire was seen, the B17 then crashed at White House Lane, Lude Farm with no survivors, at a time given 0720hr this time may not be correct a more reasonable time would be between 0700 to 0710. but how Tomahawk Warrior arrived at High Wycombe I cannot understand as it was 42 miles SW of where it should have been,  it may have been looking for Bovington Air field to land, so we have a crash time between 0700 and 0720, the Ellis B-24 crashed at 0800 at Cheshunt, some thirty miles away from High Wycombe to the east, we are talking about almost fifty minute’s difference in time, and no related damage to connect either crash.

Field Order

Now back to the Ellis ship B24H call letter Y (a/c #023), at 0528 Ellis took off from 392nd B/G Wendling Norfolk, at 0745 he was in a group of B24s that were flying south-east of London over Bromley in Kent all in formation at 14,000ft  when Ellis ( a/c #023) dropped out of this formation, seven crews provided information on this, the accounts are so varied that I will not include them here, only one account is relevant to this search and that came from Capt J E Muldoon (a/c #548) 578 Sqdn, “observation” 0745hr Ship on left wing, nose high, at this point in time I estimate that Ellis (a/c #023 ) has lost all power and is about to go  into a deadly stall, last seen going into cloud at 10,000 ft near to Biggin Hill Airfield,” this is twenty-five miles south of the crash site at Cheshunt, I have taking into account  some variations and have doubled checked all coordinates given for each b-24 that gave information at the time and they are all grouped together over Bromley in Kent except for 2nd Lt Haines (a/c #697) North of Addington and Capt J E Muldoon he was Southwest of Biggin Hill. F/O Pierce (a/c #194) 577 Sqdn and he was just south of Blackwall London fourteen miles behind the main group.
So I conclude that the Pilot, 2/LT J.D.Ellis and Co/Pilot, F/O S.C.Stalsby. managed to gain some control after the stall while going down though 8,000 ft of cloud to emerge from the extremely low cloud ceiling near to Bullsmoor Lane south of Waltham Cross at a time close to 0800 hr, fifteen minutes to cover twenty-five miles does not seen to be unreasonable.

After the crash there was rumor’s that there was one survivor a Gunner, S/Sgt. William C McGinley, and records at that time confirmed this, but all this proved to be incorrect, Uncle George also confirmed that there were no survivors. So I made a search for this W.C.McGinley, and sure enough he did exist, after some time I made contact with this gentleman, and had a email back from his wife Bonnie. “John” received your letter today and Bill my husband wanted me to let you know that his plane was shot down at Waterloo, Belgium on Jan 29th 1944, he lived with the underground for seven-half months, the German government reported Bill as killed. Bonnie said that Bill had heard of this plaque with his name on it, but it was not him, as I now know this McGinley is from Arkanas, and the McGinley from the Ellis ship (a/c #023) was from Buffalo, NY.

How strange to have two airmen at the 392nd B/G Wendling with identical ID, after this I sent some info and photo of the plaque so Bill could see what it was all about.

Fire post at Halsy Hall in 1939 (Copyright Lowewood Museum)

Waltham Cross 1944 my town, was a magnet for the US personnel  at the weekends they used to flood in, we had more pubs to the square mile than any other village in the UK, and all very old especially the Four Swans Inn, this is where in 1291 the cortege stopped for the night when returning the body of Queen Eleanor of Castile wife of King Edward 1 to Westminster Abbey, every pub and inn had a great atmosphere so they all had a good time, and all us boys had plenty of gum, and the girls had nylons so we were told!!

1944 was not a happy time for my family, we were still being bombed at night, on the 23 Feb we had a very bad air raid, as my dad was a Air Raid Warden, when the air  raid warning sounded my dad had to go to the Wardens Centre about ten minutes away, during the raid we had a big explosion close to the house, taking out some windows, when the all clear sounded, Mum said I must have a look to see if there is a hole, in case Dad falls into it on his bike on the way home, but she found him at the side of the house all tangled up with his bike the fragments from the explosion had killed him, he had never left because he had felt it was not safe to ride to the Wardens Centre.

My Dad served in the first world war, and was in the Artillery, his job was moving Artillery with a team of horses, he survived all this carnage and death only to be killed outside his own house during a German air raid. My Mum was awarded a widows pension of fifty pounds a year, this went up in Aug 44 to sixty pounds a year.

One afternoon in the summer about 1400hr there was the sound of heavy  bombers coming across from the east suddenly a line of B17 bombers flying in a long line north to south appeared, a sickening site they had been to hell and back, they were all flying at about 1500 ft I could only see five or six of them as they were all very low and very slow, two of them had engines stopped all had severe damage large parts missing, but the worst was the one almost above my head the port outer engine was gone and a lot of damage also to this wing especially where it joined the fuselage, part of the tail fin was missing, a large hole just aft of the waist gunner’s position you could see right though and out the other side, just off the starboard wing flew a P51 it was just forward and above the wing, the P51 pilot was in line with B17 pilot. Early one morning my Mum was hanging out the washing and all of a sudden a fighter plane hopped over some trees from the south-west god she said look at that, as it passed we could see it was German, a black cross on the side a Me109, it was so low just above the roof tops the pilot had his hand up to shield the sun from his eyes, but Mum said he was giving her the German salute, never changed her mind on this.

We saw our first V1 Doodlebug  in June 1944 it was dark at the time, Mum said that it was a plane on fire the engine stopped and there was a large explosion Mum said its crashed, we were unaware at the time to what it was. But in October 44 we got blown apart by one that came down in Ruthven Avenue, if this V1 had three more seconds of fuel it would have dropped on us and we would have been dead, it took till Jan 1945 to complete all the repairs to our house, on the very next day a V2 Rocket came down on the Brush Factory and blew us apart again.

Mum was down stairs getting dressed with her back to the french doors, the blast from the V2 blew the glass across the room and cut the back of her head and between her shoulder’s, she came running up stairs bare foot over all the glass and debris to see if i was OK, her hair was covered with blood from the cuts, later that day Mum went round to Dr Smyth to have the cuts looked at, and have the remaining piece’s of glass removed, one small shard that could not be reached had to be left, Doctor said it will eventually come out, and after a few months it came out of her right arm near her wrists.

“TARGET” WHY JUVINCOURT A/F . on the 2nd August 1944, ten days before this mission  a prototype jet  fighter Arado 234 T9+MH took of from Juvincourt 13 Miles N/W of Reims, France, the pilot Eric Sommer flew high over the artificial harbour at Arromanches Normandy at 36,000 ft and took many photos, so this is why it was a target for bombing.

This only accounts for a  fraction of many years of searching for the truth, I am indebted to a wonderful lady from the b24 net Annette Tison, I first contacted Annette in 2004 about the Ellis crash at Cheshunt, she has always and never let me down on all my queries large and small, it is outstanding the info that she has found, my quest has taken me in many directions into most unbelievable places, I think Annette thought that it would never end, but the search never ends new info comes up maybe every month or so.

We must never forget these brave Young men that came went and never ask why, this is for the Memory of B-24 (a/c 023) 42-95023

Pilot                                  2nd Lt Ellis, John D
Co-Pilot,                           F/O Stalsby, S C
Navigator                        2nd Lt Cox, R R
Engineer                          T/Sgt Jankowski, SF
Radio Operator                T/Sgt Holling, J H
Gunner                             S/Sgt Hultengren, C W
Gunner                             S/Sgt Minick, F
Gunner                             S/Sgt Cable, J V
Gunner                             S/Sgt Shafer, J D
Gunner                             S/Sgt McGinley, William C

John A W Harris.
Wormley.
Hertfordshire.
England.
April 2009.