Marchington Mk.X Memorial

On the afternoon of 13 June 1944 -- exactly one week after D-Day -- Wellington LP397 departed RAF Castle Donington on a routine cross-country training exercise. Twenty-five minutes into the flight, the aircraft entered a thunderstorm. The Wellington emerged from cloud in a steep, unrecoverable dive and crashed in a field beside Mayfield Parish Church. All six crew were killed instantly. Subsequent investigation found no evidence of structural failure, leading investigators to conclude the aircraft may have been struck by lightning. Of the six-man crew, five were Canadian; the exception was 31-year-old Sgt William Paterson, a Scotsman who was the oldest aboard. The youngest, 19-year-old air gunner James Stevens from Canada, had barely begun his training. Pilot Joseph Starr was 29 -- old for a bomber crew member -- and had travelled to England before the war to join the RAF. He is buried in Nottingham's Jewish Cemetery, while his Canadian crewmates rest at Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey.