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Hammond
Hampson-Baugh
Hart
Hayward
Hobden W
Hobden K
Hobson
Hoslin
HAMMOND, James Leonard Gordon
Sergeant 1865865 (Air Bomber)
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 5 O.T.U.
Died 1-June-1945 aged 20
Son of J. L. Hammond and Ethel Hammond, 32 Winkworth Road Banstead, Surrey, England.
James attended Sutton County School between 1936 and 1941 where he was known as Wally by his school chums. He qualified as a Pilot in February 1945 and was expecting a commission shortly afterwards.
James Hammond was killed as part of a Liberator Bomber crew serving with No. 5 OTU (Operational Training Unit) RCAF based at Boundary Bay, British Columbia, and administered by Western Air Command (WAC), at Jericho Beach near Vancouver.
The role of 5 OTU is fascinating and indicates the scope of the Allied Air Forces remit during the war.
At the start of the Second World War, Chamberlain's Government recognised that airpower was vital to an eventual allied victory and that in the coming struggle there would be a need for intensive aircrew training programmes to produce pilots and crews for the Royal Air Force.
Later, in a letter by Winston Churchill to Commonwealth Prime Ministers, the target was to be set at 20,000 pilots and 30,000 other aircrew annually.
The peaceful skies above the countries that were then seen as part of the British Empire, would offer ideal training conditions and Canada was seen as an especially attractive location. Within weeks of the start of hostilities, the Canadian government generously responded to Chamberlain's appeal for help and quickly became the backbone of what was referred to as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS)by the RAF but was known in Canada as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP).
At its peak in 1943/44 over 100,000 Canadians were directly employed by the BCATP in 111 units across Canada which was to train 137,910 aircrew. The BCATP plan ended officially on March 31st 1945, but Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) continued to process the crews being trained within the scheme for another year, particularly as the war against Japan continued.
By early 1944 the BCATP in Canada operated on such a large scale that the needs for aircrew in Europe, seen as the priority for the early war years, were at last being met and even exceeded. It was therefore decided to allocate aircrew to Air Command South East Asia (ACSEA or SEAC) for operations against the Japanese.
In order to push back the Japanese from their conquests in Burma, Malaya and Singapore, it was clear that a small but elite bomber force of at least six squadrons of long range heavy bombers would be required to support the 14th Army. The decision was made to use the American B24J Liberator which was available in numbers, whereas the British types were all needed for the European night bomber offensive.
Known in RAF service as the Liberator B MkVI, the aircraft carried a crew of eleven but had a range long enough to operate against the Japanese from bases in India.
The location chosen to train this force was Western Canada, with the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean near at hand. RCAF Boundary Bay on the coast, just south of Vancouver right on the border with the USA was the principle airfield together with its satellite, a few miles east, inland at RCAF Abbotsford.
It was at Boundary Bay on April 1st 1944 that No 5 RCAF OTU was formed with 27 B25 Mitchells and 17 Liberators. The twin-engined American B25 Mitchell bombers were used as trainers allowing the pilots to step up to the big four-engined Liberators in stages and these were also supplemented with a flight of P40 Kittyhawk fighters, used for fighter affiliation exercises.
The initial training was completed at Boundary Bay and the assumption at the time was that the RAF Liberator crews would be flying at night, so the training involved a seven man crew, (2 pilots, Navigator, Bomb aimer, Wireless Air Gunner and an Air Gunner.)
A change of plan to daylight operations called for four Air Gunners and a second Wireless Air Gunner to make it an eleven man crew. It was at this point that a second base became necessary. From this point on all Mitchell training was done at Boundary Bay with the initial six man crews learning the American systems and the Air Gunners learning the .50 calibre weapons. Once this initial training was complete all students were sent to the second station at Abbotsford some ten miles to the East of Boundary Bay. Here they would form the 11 man crews that would eventually ship out overseas.
Abbotsford,with its geographical proximity to Boundary Bay and to the sea made the location desirable, and the need for a flat area suitable as an aerodrome limited location options, but Abbotsford had one disadvantage. It rested at the base of the foothills of the Coast Range Mountains which rose to form an impressively high barrier to the East.
By the end of 1944 training for SEAC was in full swing. The regime was extremely comprehensive, including air navigation exercises of up to ten hours duration, formation flying, formation bombing exercises, air to air firing, air to ground firing, camera reconnaissance flights, day and night cross country flights.
At that time,Liberators were all given the standard RAF cammo colours on the U.S. assembly lines and in order to distinguish them from operational aircraft, training Liberators had their wing tips painted yellow and a yellow band around the fuselage. It was decided that when a training aircraft came in for its 30 hour maintenance check, the camouflage paint would be removed. This decision appears to have been based on two factors.
1. The lead camouflage paint added an estimated 900 pounds to the weight of a Liberator thus increasing fuel consumption.
2. A number of aircraft on the West Coast had gone missing, often crashing into the woods etc. Camouflage paint on training aircraft was not required and if they were shiny they would stand out easier against the bush should they go down.
James Hammond's Liberator and the one in which he made his last flight was (B24J US Serial 44-44312) RCAF Serial KK241. There is no known image of Liberator KK241.
Every US manufactured aircraft that came off the assembly line was given a USAAF ser. number. eg: 44-44312. There were five locations where the Liberators were made and only two of these locations sent Liberators to 5 OTU. The KK241 number was the British/Canadian or RAF/RCAF number. This was the only number used by Canada or the UK. The code letters were a Unit or 5 OTU use only. Officially the RAF and RCAF would have only ever known these aircraft by their KK241 type number. Some earlier aircraft were re-coded but Hammond's aircraft never had a second code number; it was only at 5 OTU for 14 days before the crash. Official RCAF records show this aircraft in Western Air Command storage from the delivery date from the USA until it was taken on by 5 OTU.
The fate of KK241 is recorded in the Chilliwack Archives which hold a copy of an article written by Chris Weicht, Commanding office of the Air Cadet Squadron at Abbotsford, as published in the BC Aviator Vol 3 No 2 Oct/Nov. 1993. The article is titled "Liberator VY KK241 - Lest We Forget", and is the main but not only source for what happened to this aeroplane and some of the information detailed in the article has since been updated following further detailed research by Michael DesMazes.
The aircraft was the RCAF Liberator Coded KK241. The RAF crew at No. 5.0.T.U. were nearing the end of their assignment at RCAF Base Abbotsford, and were soon to be dispatched to the RAF "Tiger Force" in the Pacific(history shows that this never took place and most 5 OTU crews were sent to S.E. Asia and Burma RAF squadrons.).
At 9:06 a.m. on June 1st 1945, the Liberator left Abbotsford on a "cross country navigational exercise" under the command of Flying Officer William D.A. Hill. The Second Pilot was Pilot Officer Gilbert, and the Navigator was Sergeant Graham Murray. Several of the crew were wireless air gunners. Radio contact was lost at 9:40 a.m. and the flight was never heard from again.
An intensive search was organised at dawn on June 2nd, but dense cloud in the mountains hampered the operation for almost 2 weeks. My Uncle was involved in the ground search as the leader of one group of many sent out into the mountains to find the wreck. On June 16th after the weather cleared, the wreckage of the aircraft was finally spotted on Mount Welch. The plane had crashed less than 100 feet below its 7730 foot summit.
An air force search party trekked into the rugged mountain terrain, and established a base camp at 4500 feet above the Chilliwack River valley floor, below the saddle between Mt. Still and Mt. Welch. On June 20 two members of the search party reached the crash site and confirmed that the wreckage was that of the RCAF Liberator VY - KK241. The search party returned 5 days later with an Anglican Padre. Bodies were removed from the wreckage and buried at an elevation of 6600 feet.
A wooden cross was erected bearing the names of the airmen, and services were performed. The grave was beautified with wild mountain flowers. My Uncle, Les Jesperson visited the crash site not long after, and photographed the cross (see photo) and rock cairn memorial.
Chris Weicht, the Commanding officer of the Air Cadet Squadron at Abbotsford, hiked into the mountains in search of the grave in 1982, but could find no sign of it. Numerous landslides over the previous 40 years had removed any evidence of the location, and had even brought many pieces of the aircraft down as far as the base camp. Chris decided to construct a new monument to the deceased airmen, a feat that was accomplished on June 11, 1983. It was constructed on an island in Airplane Creek near the location of the Squadron Leader's camp of 1945. The monument is comprised of a complete engine of the aircraft mounted in a vertical position with its base encased in 200 pounds of cement, which had been carried to the site by the Cadets. Local stone and other wreckage was placed around the monument. A stainless steel plaque was mounted at the base listing the airmen's names and details of the tragedy. (Capt Jason White Regional Cadet Air Operations (Pacific) will try and obtain a photograph of this monument)
| Name | Rank | Service No. | Age |
| Stanley ALDRIDGE | Sergeant | 1892574 | 20 |
| Albert Eric BROADBENT | Sergeant | 1591260 | 19 |
| John Randall DALE | Sergeant | 1895153 | 32 |
| William Peter Watt DRUMMOND | Sergeant | 1565226 | 23 or 24 * |
| Isaac GIBBONS | Sergeant | 1591213 | 19 |
| James Leonard Gordon HAMMOND | Sergeant | 1865865 | 20 |
| Arthur William David HILL | Flying Officer | 164394 | 21 |
| David Robertson LANGLANDS | Sergeant | 1564813 | |
| Gilbert Ewart Ellis LONG | Pilot Officer | 167802 | 21 |
| Graham MURRAY | Sergeant | 1811515 | 20 |
| William Thomas SWATTON | Sergeant | 1169175 | 34 |
The Commonwealth War Grave Commission records indicated that all of these men were commemorated by "the Ottawa Memorial", Ottawa Ontario Canada. This Memorial commemorates those of the Air Forces of the British Commonwealth who lost their lives while serving in units operating from bases in Canada, the British West Indies and the United Sates, or while training in Canada and the U.S.A., and who have no known graves.
Jim Fail, serving with 5 OTU at the time recalls that when radio contact with the aeroplane was lost and when the aeroplane failed to return all rescue services were put on alert as the fate of the crew could depend on a timely rescue from either the sea to the west, or from the mountainous territory to the east.
For days every available aircraft combed the region, each being allocated areas of ocean or of land. The Group Captain commanding 5 OTU was an experienced pilot having completed a tour of operations in Europe. He piloted a single engined Noordyn Norseman communications aircraft and flew in and out of the Chilliwack Mountain valleys, impossible for the lumbering bombers. He found what everyone had been dreading.
The Liberator had flown into the sheer face of Mount Welch, about 7000ft above sea level. It was 36 miles off course although only a few minutes flying time east of Abbotsford. The aircraft had completely disintegrated and there was no possibility of survivors. The incident is regarded as the worst to have occurred during 5 OTU's history, although there were other crashes and numerous fatalities.
James Hammond lost his life just 10 weeks before the war finally ended. He never had to bomb the Japanese and his mortal remains lie high in the mountains of British Colombia to this day. Mount Welch is located between Wahleach Lake and the Chilliwack River, Yale Division, Yale Land District. According to the article by Chris Weicht, the Cadets of 861 Abbotsford Squadron make a trek to the location each year in remembrance of the loss of the 11 RAF airmen. They are not forgotten.
Six weeks after the Japanese surrender, 5 Operational Training Unit disbanded. Its remaining Liberators were sold as scrap in 1946.
James is one of the Suttonians listed on the school's Roll of Honour for WWII and this still hangs in the school hall today.
The Cenotaph pictured on the right is at Boundary Bay Airport, the former RCAF Station Boundary Bay, and sits right beside a large hangar, which is the sole remaining World War II building on the airport grounds.
Capt Jason White Regional Cadet Air Operations (Pacific) and his father-in-law constructed it with the assistance of local businesses. The Cenotaph was dedicated at a ceremony on May 7, 2005. Those in attendance included six Air Cadet squadrons and many veterans, including quite a few who had flown at RCAF Station Boundary Bay. The picture below shows the Honour guard reversing arms.
CWGC Memorial Reference: Panel 4. Column 2.
OTTAWA MEMORIAL Ontario, Canada.
Source : Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Okanagan Researcher, Vol. 16 (4), June 2000 (Mountaintop Memorials by Gayle Jesperson)
The memoirs of JEH Fail (Jim) - 5 OTU, Boundary Bay 1944/5.
The Chilliwack archive - Chris Weicht, Commanding office of the Air Cadet Squadron at Abbotsford.
www.rquirk.com - SEAC aviation/Liberator history site.
Aircrew Unlimited, John Golley - PSL 1993
Capt Jason White Regional Cadet Air Operations (Pacific)
Article from Ex-Air Gunner’s magazine, Short Bursts on the ceremony at the cenotaph.
Thanks also go to Michael DesMazes whose detailed research since 1987 has provided valuable information on the aircraft used by 5 OTU.
br> The Suttonian magazine from Sutton Grammar School's archives.
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Last update 25 October 2007 - Text updates throughout.
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