Mundford Lancaster Memorial

On 22 March 1945, with the war in Europe entering its final weeks, Lancaster HK773 of 15 Squadron taxied out at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk for what should have been a routine departure for operations. Moments after becoming airborne at 11:00 hours, a fire erupted in the port outer engine. The pilot, Warrant Officer Newton of the Royal Australian Air Force, found himself in an impossible situation -- his aircraft was too low and too slow to bail the crew out, and too heavily laden with fuel and ordnance to maintain flight on three engines. Newton attempted an emergency crash landing in Thetford Forest, just across the county border in Norfolk near the village of Mundford. The Lancaster struck the trees and ploughed into the forest floor. On impact, the 4,000 lb "Blockbuster" high-capacity bomb in the bomb bay detonated, creating an enormous crater and killing all seven crew members instantly. The violence of the explosion was such that fragments of the aircraft are still being found in the surrounding forest today.