CROXALL, James Frederick

Sergeant 1323586

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve 142 Squadron

Died 4-July-1943 aged 22

James F Croxall was born on 30 June 1921 and his birth is registered in Hertford. His mother's surname is recorded as Symms. His parents' marriage was registered at Barnstaple in 1916 and shows Albert G Croxall married Ethel B Symons. (Note the discrepancy in the spelling of Mrs Croxall's maiden name.)

James, or Jimmy as he was often called, was the third of five siblings, Douglas 1918, Joan 1920, Evelyn (Bubbles) 1922 and the youngest Gwen, born in 1930. Gwen, being nine years younger than James, was especially fond of her big brother and the two were very close. She loved to watch him play cricket at the Banstead Cricket Club. James attended Oxted County School where he was a member of Tenchleys House; his exam results over the years from 1934 to 1939 show that he did not particularly excel at school.

Left back Douglas and right James with sisters Gwen, Jean and Bubbles

"Jim was an obedient son, very steady in his ways, very close to his mother, thoughtful for others especially his baby sister Gwen who died last year at the age of eighty. He was a son to be proud of but shy and retiring. After he left school in Dec 1939, he worked for a time with tea merchants at Woodmansterne, not far from Banstead. Eventually he volunteered for RAF duty and embarked to North Africa. Before he left he held up a penny and said - Don't tell mum but my life is not worth that."

Jimmy with youngest sister Gwen

The patch above his right breast pocket is unusual and its identification defeated at least two experts however Allen Clifford, a WWII Air Observer knew it well, and tells us that "It was a surname tag. A little bit of leather was issued to us which we cobbled onto our battledress with black thread, and then inscribed our surname in Indian ink. Nowadays all aircrew have a black patch which bears the brevet and the wearer's name in embroided yellow thread, but then our brevets were just stitched onto our battledress"

James was posted to No. 142 Squadron which at the time had already arrived in North Africa, initially based at Blida in Algeria, under MAC (Mediterranean Air Command). The filthy conditions of life in the desert must have been a severe culture shock, but Jim never complained in his letters, remembered Joan some sixty years later.

The first record of James flying as part of an established crew comes from the Squadron Operational Records Book (ORB) in an entry dated 12 March 1943. This shows Sgt H W Harbottle as pilot, flying Wellington DF552, with Samuels, Cox, Croxall and Brodie - their target was the Tunis Docks.

This image from the collection of Bert Parker reproduced here with permission from D. Parker shows a Wellington Bomber from 420 Sqn about to be loaded with a Cookie.

On their tenth bombing run together, on the 23 April, Sgt Harbottle was wounded twice but managed to get the aircraft home making an "excellent" landing. He was immediately taken to hospital.

The major air effort in the Middle East in 1943 was in support of allied operations in Tunisia involving no fewer than 10 Wellington Squadrons, with ports and airfields constituting the priority targets.

James Frederick Croxall

As Sgt Harbotte was hospitalized, James Croxall and the others in the crew were in need of a pilot, and a Sgt W Smith, a pilot, needed a new crew as two of his own crew were injured after baling out. This new team flew seven sorties together between the 8 June and the 2 July 1943; five of the trips were in Wellington HZ474-R. There may well have been more in May however the relevant records for that month are missing. During the month of June, a total of 373 sorties were flown and 1.5 million lbs of bombs dropped - an example of the increasing effectiveness of the Wing.

In preparation for Operation Husky — the Allied invasion of Sicily on 9/10 July — an intensive bombing campaign was commenced. James and the crew were on ops every second night over a ten day period starting on the night of 24/25 June. Their sixth outing on the night of the 4/5 July, was to become their final fatal mission. That night the crew took off from RAF Kairouan, Tunisia at 20.47hrs for a raid on Catania, Italy. On this occasion the pilot was Squadron Leader A P Craigie, with whom they had flown once before. At 21.43hrs a signal was received from their aircraft stating that it was abandoning the mission, due to problems with one of its engines. The ORB shows that their Wellington was DF629, one of two other 'cookie' bombers on the squadron, and this may well have been one previously flown by Craigie, but following much detailed research (see below) their aircraft was confirmed to be none other that HZ474-R ie the one they had used many times previously. DF629 continued operations with the squadron and survived until the end of the war, whilst HZ474-R is never mentioned again, thus confirming beyond doubt that the details recorded in the ORB are incorrect.

The ORB narrative continues — "A message had been received one hour after take off that he was returning to base owing to engine trouble. Sea searches were carried out throughout today [5th] and traces of a missing aircraft and members of crew were seen at 11.00 hours this morning. No rescues were attempted however, nor was confirmation obtained that this was in fact S/Ldr Craigie's aircraft."

HZ474-R crashed into the sea approximately 4 miles off the coast of Augusta, Sicily but this too does not quite tie in with the ORB. Looking at the times the other aircraft left and returned from the Catania sortie, it was a 4.5 to 5 hour round trip. If James' crew was returning to base an hour after take off, how did the aircraft come to crash near Augusta, Sicily? This is very near Catania. The most logical explanation is that the problem with the engine was somehow resolved and having got the engine running properly again, they then resumed the flight to Catania. It's most likely that the 4000lb Cookie was either dropped over the target, or jettisoned before the Wellington hit the water. Given a choice and enough time, the pilot would always jettison the bomb load before ditching. As they crashed in the target area, they were probably brought down by enemy action.

Wellingtons often seemed to break their back when they ditched. The bomb beams ran to the wing trailing edge and the fuselage was much weaker aft of this point, so often broke at the back of the bomb beam. The navigator's position was closest to this point. If the crew knew they were going to ditch, and had enough time, all except the pilot would have attempted to assemble in the navigator/wireless operator's compartment, sitting down and facing backwards. It would seem that in the case of HZ474-R, the aircraft came down too quickly to allow this to happen, but the Wellington did break up in the expected manner and only one crew member survived — P/O II Samuels, the Navigator. Details of the full crew are shown below:

Sgts Brodie, Cox and Croxall are all listed on the same Memorial panel.

76476       S/Ldr A P Craigie DFC - Pilot
131900     P/O I I Samuels Navigator
1323586   Sgt J F Croxall - Bomb Aimer
7026391    Sgt H Cox - Wireless Operator/Air Gunner
1577278   Sgt G S Brodie - Air Gunner

P/O Ian Israel Samuels, later confirmed that the aircraft sank immediately it hit the water, and that he only survived because he was able to swim to the surface through a hole in the aircraft. He could see in the moonlight that none of the others had surfaced and despite an injury to his leg, he decided to swim for land. After several hours, he reach the Sicilian coast where he was picked up by Italian sentries. Ironically, Sicily was not the best place to be at this time because of the intensive bombing being carried out by the RAF. Another fact that must have weighed heavily on Ian's mind is that he was of Jewish Origin. After some time he was transported to Stalag Luft III, in Sagan Germany. Initially he was reported as missing, but news of his capture eventually reached his parents nearly four weeks after the after the incident. He spent the remainder of the war as a POW and in 1946 returned to his home town of Liverpool where he joined the family business. He died in 2001 aged eighty, having refused to talk to his family about the experience which had affected him so badly.

The Malta Memorial Reference: Panel 8, Column 1.

Sergeant James Croxall and the other casualties have no known grave and are amongst the 2,298 airmen commemorated on the Floriana Memorial in Malta. The Malta Memorial commemorates airmen who lost their lives during the Second World War whilst serving with the Commonwealth Air Forces flying from bases in Austria, Italy, Sicily, islands of the Adriatic and Mediterranean, Malta, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, West Africa, Yugoslavia and Gibraltar.

CUTTS, Frederick William

Captain 116480

Royal Artillery 3 A.A. Tractor Bty.

Awarded the Military Cross.

Died 19-November-1946 aged 57

Son of John and Sarah Ann Cutts.
Husband of Rose Ellen Cutts, of Epsom Downs.