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Shot down British Bomber - Wreckage from Whitley V N1497 ZA-B

429 views · Published 9 January 2014 · 4:41 · Indexed 18 October 2026

Channel: kevinofishero Shooting n stuff · 2014 · People & Blogs

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A good friend of mine recently gave me a box containing small parts of plane wreckage that were gathered by his father on the 16th of August 1940. In the box of bits their was a handwritten note by his Father that says "Remains of an English 4 engined bomnber that crashed in the town of Ceresole D'alba on the 16th of August 1940 at 2,10 am"

Although I found various reports in Italian war diaries and Allied newspapers about a plane that crashed at about this time and in this town I still couldn't identify this plane. The reports did however state that the crew bailed out and were taken prisoner but the Pilot dies at the controls. The Italian war diaries stated that a British Bomber was shot down by anti aircraft fire after a bombing raid on an aircraft factory and the Caproni works in Turin. One aircraft failed to return.

I contacted the RAF Museum in Hendon and asked them if theye could help. I gave them the dates, and all the information I had gathered. They were very helpfull and gave me information of a plane that had actually not returned from a bombing mission over Turin and that had been hit by Aircraft fire ...What a great feeling having finally identified the Plane.

Crew: 
Sgt Green -  POW
F/o K H Higson - KIA
Sgt H J Davis - POW
Sgt P/O A Millington - POW
P/O A E V Oliver - POW

Further research on the crew:
Douglas Green was appointed a commision as P/O on the 24th April 1944. Sgt Green was with 10th Squadron in 1940 when on the 16 August 1940, flying Whitley N1497 on Ops to Milan was shot down over Italy. He bacame a POW. This was quite unus aircrew were not granted commisions while in captivity

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