Royal Air Force, 149 Squadron, Service no. 618714
Born: 1921. Killed in action 14th March 1941, aged 19.
Story
Ernest was the son of Ernest White (1889-1971) and Ada Kay (1889-1949) who married in Holbeck on 4th March 1911. Ernest senior was an Iron Moulder Engineer, and the family lived at 4 Lauder Place, Dewsbury Road, Holbeck. Ernest was the youngest child and had a brother, George, and two sisters, Mary (1916-1988) and Florence (1919-1986).
Ernest joined the Royal Air Force, and was killed early in the War when his Aircraft, and 5 fellow crew members were shot down over the Netherlands on 14th March 1941. Ernest was posted missing, and confirmation of his death was a small footnote in the local press 10 months later (below):
Like many bereaved relatives, Ernest’s family knew little about the circumstances surrounding his death. However, Dutch researchers have investigated the crash site, and have unfolded the full story of what happened to Ernest’s airplane on 14th March 1941.
Ernest was on board a Vickers Wellington, serial number L7858, call sign OJ-A, which departed RAF Mildenhall at 7:40pm. Their target was Scholven Hydrierwerke in Gelsenkirchen, which was a refinery of synthetic fuels. The plane was shot down by an experienced night hunter, Hauptmann Streib at 10:30pm. The wreckage of the plane remained undiscovered for 78 years. Here, the Dutch researchers explain how they discovered the remains of Ernest’s Bomber.
The discovery
It was 30 March 2018, when Gérard called me asking if I wanted to go with him to Mariaveen. He knew there was a big crater in the ground over there and maybe this crater was caused by the crash of an aircraft. I knew what he was talking about because I already had discovered this crater on a height map on the internet and I knew a crash of a WW2-bomber had occurred there in that area. Together we went to Mariaveen, a swampy nature reserve on the border of Sevenum and Helenaveen, and owned by the Dutch Forestry Commission. Upon arrival at the site I told Gérard that I had already found this hole on a height map and that the location corresponded to the crash site of an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. However, we could not do anything because the hole was filled with water almost to the edge. Gérard could not wait and he poked in the bottom of the crater with a prod. At one point, Gérard came across something made of metal. We could hear that and feel it too. Our hearts beated faster. Would we be right? I tried to feel what it was and up to my armpit I felt in the ice-cold water. Unfortunately the water was too deep and I could not reach it.
We told the story of our find to Mr. Martin Carree of the Forestry Commission, he is the superintendent of Mariaveen and he lives in Kronenberg, the same village where Gérard lives. He was very enthusiastic and promised us every cooperation. There were two things that we had to take into account. One: We needed an entry permit of the Forestry Commission to search outside the paths. Two: Until July 15th we were not allowed to search outside the paths in Mariaveen because of the breeding season of wild birds in the reserve. The entry permit turned out to be no problem for Martin. So we had to wait … and that was difficult with an entry permit in our pocket.
15 July 2018. The wait is finally rewarded and we could enter the crash site. We searched the area around the deep crater with our metal detectors. And indeed: Beep beep, a signal from the metal detector. Digging with a beating heart…. and yes, a small piece of aluminium. A little further on we find a piece of copper pipe. If you come across things like this in a nature reserve, you are 99% sure that these things must be part of an aircraft.
The history books, the Tradition Chamber of Volkel Air Base and official documents such as the reports of the Explosive Clearance Group wrote that a Whitley bomber with serial number Z6493 and call sign EY-V had crashed at this location. In his book “De Hel van Watenstedt”, Mr. Arie Crommentuyn, who at the time lived close to the location, also thought it was a Whitley which had crashed there. The book “Spinninghe, Sevenum during the Second World War” from our own Historical Society also tells about Whitley Z6493 of 78 squadron Royal Air Force.
Above: Whitworth Whitley Z6493 – EY-V
We thought we had gathered more than enough evidence and I started a search for the crew’s families. I found the families of the pilot of the Whitley Z6493, John Garrould and of the co-pilot Robert Keymer. Both families were very curious about what had happened to their loved ones and wanted to know everything in detail.
Below Left: Pilot Officer John Garrould. Below Right: Co-pilot Robert Keymer
Meanwhile Gérard and I continued searching with our detectors. At some point I found a small aluminium plate with a number on it. That number aroused my curiosity. Nr. 28507. What does that number mean? I searched the internet and found a Facebook page of “Plane Hunters Recovery Team” in Belgium. I posted the photo of the plate on their website with the text. “The metal plate on the attached photo is found at the crash location of an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley. Can someone provide me with more information”? Within no time Mr. Joop Hendrix reported with the statement “100% sure it’s of a Wellington”. More responses followed. All told us it was a part of the geodetic construction of a Wellington. It was a connector plate of the main frame.
Below: The aluminium plate that would be the key to the denouement
So it was a Wellington bomber. Our disappointment was huge of course! We had been too premature to inform the family of the Whitley crew. Gérard and I felt deep shame towards the family. The information that was noted in the past turned out to be incorrect. The story Mr. Arie Crommentuyn wrote in his book was not, (as he thought it was) about Whitley Z6493 but about a Wellington. We promised the families that we would do our utmost to find the crash location of their Whitley, but at the same time we realized that this would be a very difficult task given the terrain which is nearly inaccessible and the fact that two Whitley bombers had crashed in Mariaveen, one on 27 March 1941 and the other on 17 May 1941. It would be very difficult for us to prove the right Whitleys to the families! But we did not give up, and certainly not Gérard. Meanwhile, Joop contacted me and told me that he was a retired fighter jet pilot from our Dutch Air Force, born in Tegelen and currently living in Helmond. He had been researching crash sites for several years and he offered us his help. Joop’s buddy Sjaak de Veth also offered us his help and together we started a search in the fens of Mariaveen. The starting point was the farm of the Crommentuyn family and then we searched the entire area towards the crash location. We were very lucky because we had a very dry summer in 2018 and all the fens had run dry. However, the terrain was very difficult to access due to the man-sized pollen of grass and the search was extremely hard work. In the following weeks we found an unimaginably large number of parts that definitively confirmed that it was a Wellington bomber and not a Whitley, as all sources had claimed in the past.
Above: Piet and Gérard in Mariaveen on a very hot day in 2018
Below: Joop Hendriks with his “deepseeker” Below: Sjaak de Veth crossing a fence
Below: A small selection of our finds:
The sequel
On 13 November 2019, at the initiative of the Dutch Forestry Commission, the impact crater was deepened with the help of an excavator. There was considerable oil pollution in the soil. Perhaps one of the Wellington engines would lie deep in the quicksand. The crane operator proceeded very cautiously. At a certain moment Gérard saw the quicksand moved, a sign that a large object was probably hidden a little deeper. Carefully the operator dug deeper and then “that big object” was picked up in the bucket of the excavator. It turned out to be an unexploded 500-pounder bomb. The forest ranger who was present informed the police immediately, who in turn called in the Explosives Clearance Service of the Ministry of Defence. After investigation, the bomb was transported to a meadow nearby, buried and defused with the help of explosives.
Only one Wellington had crashed in Mariaveen in Sevenum and that was the Wellington with serial number L7858 and with call sign OJ-A, Oscar Juliette Alfa of 149 Squadron Royal Air Force. I had collected a large amount of information on the internet and was able to reconstruct the story of the Wellington from the start to the fatal crash. A later find of a preserved part of a leather glove proved that it was undoubtedly this Wellington. The last three digits of the service number of one of the crew members corresponded to the numbers in the glove piece.
Below: The crash location in Mariaveen – Sevenum
The story
It was incredibly busy at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk that night of March 14th, 1941. The Wellingtons of 149 Squadron took off at 19:50 for a bombing raid to Gelsenkirchen in the German Ruhr area. The weather was favourable for the navigation. But the light clouds and the bright moonlight were also in favour of the German night hunters. After all, they could find the bombers easier. The intended target was the Scholven Hydrierwerke (refineries for synthetic fuels). In total, a hundred and one bombers flew towards the target that night. Falling German anti-aircraft grenades caused minor damage to the city. 106 fragmentation bombs and 1370 incendiary bombs were dropped in the Scholven Buer-Mitte Hassel district according to “Gelsenzentrum, portal für Gelsenkirchener Stadtgeschichten”. The English bombers hardly found their target. Only sixteen aircraft hit the Hydrierwerke Scholven refinery, but it suffered a great deal of damage. The total number of victims was nine and the production stopped completely.
The photo above shows what the Hydrierwerke Scholven AG in Gelsenkirchen looked like in 1945 after the attacks by R.A.F. bombers
In Venlo, the air raid alarm sounded at 21:40 as the British bombers approached. In the meantime, the German night fighters had already taken off from Fliegerhorst, Venlo. At 22:30 the German air traffic control officer Oberleutnant Knickmeier of Nachtjagd location 5C at Meyel directed Hauptman Streib’s black BF110 Messerschmitt from Stab I/NJG/1 (NJG= Nachtjagd Geschwader) to the Wellington L7858. Sergeant Dicky Hawley from 149 Squadron RAF was the pilot of this aircraft. The German searchlights number 27 of 2./I and number 34 of 3./IFlachscheinwerfer Regiment coned the Wellington for 4 minutes. After a brief aerial battle the British plane crashed like a fireball. At 10.32pm a deafening explosion put an end to the lives of the crew members. The complete bomb load was still on board during the crash. Most of these bombs exploded at the same time, causing a giant crater of 18 yards in diameter and 7 yards deep. In the firefight however, Streib’s BF110 was also badly damaged by machine gun fire from the Wellington tail gunner, Sergeant Jeff Ward. Streib’s Funker (wireless operator) Oberleutnant Josef Schnauster was seriously injured in the leg.
Above left: The Messerschmitt BF110; Above centre: Hauptmann Werner Streib; Above right: Crest I/ Nachtjagdgeschwader 1
The Wellington L7858 was the tenth victim of the on-board guns of the BR110 Messerschmitt Of Hauptmann Werner Streib. Streib was feared by the English pilots. He flew about 150 missions and achieved 68 victories in daylight hunts and 67 in night hunts. Assuming an average of 5 men in the Allied planes, he was responsible for the death of 750 Allied crew. He survived the war and joined the German Bundeswehr in 1956. He died in 1986 and was buried in Munich. The bodies of the perished crew lay unrecognizable mutilated in and around a huge crater in Sevenum, near the border with Helenaveen, about 800 yards behind the Crommentuyn family’s farm. We had an interview with eyewitnesses Mrs. Mien and Mrs. Marie Crommentuyn who lived very close near the crash site in 1941 and they told us: “In the early morning, the Germans gathered the mortal remains of the crew which were scattered over a large area. They did this with the help of a large white sheet that was held by four soldiers. They then put the remains in two wooden boxes and these boxes were loaded on a truck with two German soldiers on both sides with the rifle in presentation position as a kind of tribute to the killed crew”. They were taken to Ehrenfriedhof Venlo at the Dr. Blumenkampstraat where they found a temporary grave.
Below: Interview with the ladies Mien and Marie Crommentuyn
Marie and Mien’s brother Arie Crommentuyn was captured by the Germans on 8 October 1944 during a razzia together with almost all men of the village to do forced labour in the Germany war industry. It was a horrible time for him in which several of his fellow villagers died of starvation, torture and diseases. His daughter in law Heidi Geven wrote Arie’s memoires in a book called “De Hell van Watenstedt”. In his book Arie tells what happened that evening on March 14th 1941.
Text on page 27 of the book “De Hel van Watenstedt” by Mr. Arie Crommentuyn
From 1943 on, English and American bombers flew over more and more. These were large two- or four-engine aircraft, on their way to Germany to bomb cities. In Venlo, German fighter planes were permanently ready to shoot the bombers down. The searchlights on the ground helped them. Close near the farm the Germans had built a small house in which the soldiers stayed who operated the search lights. At night when the allied aircraft flew over, the soldiers came into action. Once I realized that a bomber was being shot down very nearby. Late in the evening I heard the loud noise from an aircraft coming over and I went outside the house. Above my house I saw a bomber. He was chased by a German fighter plane that shot at him. I was convinced that he would end up upon our house. Filled with fear, we pressed ourselves against the wall. I was so scared. To be honest, I thought at that moment that I would die. In the very last moment the plane swerved and it did not crash in our backyard. It ended up a bit further in Mariaveen which is a nature reserve. That was a hell of a noise. The bomber still had bombs on board, so there was a gigantic hole on the spot where he had crashed. A lot of German soldiers immediately ran toward the spot of the crash. I had no idea where they all suddenly came from. They were transported by trucks. I went inside because it was curfew. I think the pilots of the bomber did not have a chance to jump out. In the morning after it was very foggy and my brother Kees, together with his neighbour Gerard van Mullekom, secretly went to the spot of the crash to have a look. They were gone just for a brief moment, because there were many Germans around. The soldiers cleared the crash area at breakneck speed. I climbed upon the roof of our house to see if I could see anything. I did not see anything at all. There were pieces of aluminium from the bomber on the roof and behind the house upon our land. One of the engines fell in the back garden.
Below: The Crommentuyn Farm
In 1947, the British authorities ordered the transfer of all mortal remains at the Dr. Blumenkampstraat in Venlo to the central British cemetery “Jonkerbos War Cemetery” in Nijmegen. But as always, the identification of this crew proved impossible. They therefore received a collective grave at their final resting place, Ehrenfriedhof Blumenkampstraat Venlo:
Other members of the Vickers Wellington, serial number L7858, call sign OJ-A
Sergeant / Pilot Leslie Richard Hawley (Dicky)
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
Age: 25.
From: Hampton, London.
Service number: 742914.
Jonkerbos War Cemetery Nijmegen. Grave number 12.B.9.
After this flight, Dicky would have been allowed to go on leave for some time. But it was not to be.
Sergeant / Pilot Charles Barrie Rogers (Barrie)
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
Age: 21.
From: Islington, London.
Service number: 900955.
Jonkerbos War Cemetery Nijmegen. Grave number.12.B.9.
The additional tragedy about his death was the fact that Barrie had married his beloved Edna Hill two months before, on 19th January 1941
Sergeant / Navigator Edward Guy Prettyman (Ed)
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
Age: 34.
From: Hartlepool, Durham.
Service number: 749386.
Jonkerbos War Cemetery Nijmegen. Grave number 12.B.9.
Married to Mabel and father of six children.
Sergeant/Air Gunner William George Marett (Billy)
Royal Air Force.
Age: 23.
From: St. Heliers, Jersey, Channel Islands.
Service number: 639154.
Jonkerbos War Cemetery Nijmegen. Grave number 12.B.9.
Son of Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Marett, of St. Heliers
Sergeant / Air Gunner Clifford Godfrey Harry Ward (Jeff)
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.
Age: 23.
From: Shelton, Stoke on Trent.
Service number: 751296.
Jonkerbos War Cemetery Nijmegen Grave number 12.B.9.
Jeff was the one who seriously injured Streib’s Bordunker, Oberleutnant Josef Schauster in the leg.
Below: Operation Record Book 149 Squadron RAF, March 1941
Below left: The crew’s graves at Jonkerbos War Cemetery in Nijmegen. Below right: The Graves Registration Report Form
Above: The Vickers 416 Wellington MK 1c, L7858, OJ-A
Technical information
Crew: 6
Engines: 2 x Bristol Pegasus Mark XVIII
Length: 64 ft
Engine power each: 1.050 hp
Height: 17 ft 5 inches
Top speed: 235 mph at 15.500 ft
Wingspan: 86 ft 2 inches
Range: 2.550 ml
Empty weight: 18.556 lb
Service Ceiling: 18.000 ft
Max. take off weight: 28.500 lb
Bombs: 4.500 lb
Guns: 6-8x.303 Browning machine guns
Researcher: Piet Snellen
Kippax Connection
Ernest is the uncle of Maureen Styring (née Overfield) who has lived in Kippax since 1963.
Kippax Roll of Honour 