51 Squadron memorial

We decided to go for a walk in a slightly different bit of woodland along the Chiltern Escarpment and were surprised to come across a WW2 memorial.

On 31 March 1944 a Handley Page Halifax Mk III bomber aircraft, LW579 of No. 51 Squadron RAF, was returning from the Nuremberg Raid when it crashed in the wood, killing all seven of its crew.

LW579 was based at RAF Snaith in the East Riding of Yorkshire and seems to have been at least 120 miles off course. It was a clear, moonlit night, and it is not clear why the Halifax lost height and crashed into the hill.  It was one of six aircraft that the squadron lost in the same night on the same mission.

The monument to the crew is a stone plinth from Lincoln Cathedral, now with the men's names inscribed upon it.