Mysterious accident, Catania, Sicily - 24 February 1944

The 807th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron; abbreviated as MAES) (the unit whose officer died on the flight); she was the unit's only loss in WW2 has a few online items:

1) 807th Medical Air Evac Plane Lost Over Albania - World War II Day by Day remarkable survival stories There are many items and a few books on this episode
2) An Oral History interview: Dorothy C. Errair Collection

I had hoped a more general overview of such flights would appear alas no.

 

General overview within here.

Mysterious accident, Catania, Sicily - 24 February 1944

Just fire up the pdf and search the word "medical" for starters, or "evacuation".

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

P.S. Try not to get sidetracked by "Mission Manhole"

 

From the section I originally pulled paragraph 187 from in previous post #5.

Many photos follow said section. Two included by way of example.

Kind regards, always Jim.

 

Jim, what a lot of hard work you have put into this. I don't think we will get any further without their service records.

 

Joseph Seddon was wounded at El Alamein in 1942 with 6th DLI . Josephs family (wife) lived at 43 Arley Street Liverpool she was initially informed her husband had been `killed in action` confirmed in the first casualty listing. The second `amended` listing was corrected to `Accidentally Killed`
At the time of his wounding at Alamein he was with 6th DLI he was not with them when he was killed as 6th DLI were `home` preparing for D-Day .No DLI battalions were in Italy at the time of his death. 1DLI were still retraining following their losses on Kos and the 16th DLI embarked from Naples aboard the MV Sobieski for Port Said on 21st February 1944 .They too spent four months retraining in the Middle East, before returning to Italy on July 3rd 1944 ?
Posting pending perhaps ?

Kyle

 

That's interesting Kyle. I hadn't looked as far back as 1942 dated Official Casualty lists, (List 989 published 24th November 1942) given the air crash was in February '44.

For Joseph to have been on the flight for reason of a wound received in November 1942 would seem doubtful to me, but then again, if he was severely wounded it might have been a long road to recovery, though I doubt in that case he would ever have left Egypt for Sicily.

As Janet (Vitellino) has said above, and as I mentioned in post # 20, individual service records would be the next step, though with the possible redacting of medical records/entries from same it would still move things no further forward.

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Just grabbed my working list from the past couple of days.

As Kyle has said, Joseph Seddon first reported "Killed" on Casualty list No. 1408 published on 31st March 1944, subsequently corrected to "casualty should read accidentally killed" on Casualty List No. 1420 published on 14th April 1944.

For folks interested images of "working list" attached (old bloke shaky printing, but it works for me) which give the names of the casualties as blitz_researcher first posted up, plus the casualty list numbers that each is listed on, with the wording that was used for each casualty from each list.

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

"Posting pending perhaps ?"

Absolutely Kyle!

Or, if already with 16 DLI, missed the boat for some reason so to speak? The poor chap must have been under some form of medical treatment to be on that flight.

Again, as Janet said previously, records for the individual the only other way forward methinks. Not a route for me though given timescales and all that (If I applied for one I'd feel compelled to apply for them all, and realistically my personal egg timer doesn't have the sand left in it for that).

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

Jim, how did you put it, "Faces to names, names to faces"? As a thank you to the huge amount of work you and others have put into this, please 'meet' Kenneth Grant:



And here is my draft text for my web post, with a short explanation it is not written with the 'experts' at WW2 Talk in mind so apologies for the simplifcations I have made:

Kenneth ‘Keachie’ Grant was 29 when he died. We have four glimpses of his life.

The first glimpse is on 5th August 1915 at 9 Queen Street, Inverness, where a baby boy is born to Corporal Kenneth Grant of the 1st Seaforth Highlanders (the Great War was one year old) and Helen (nee MacLennan, although her marriage certificate names her as Nellie). Before the war, Kenneth senior had worked as a groom and Helen/Nellie was a domestic servant (from their wedding certificate). Baby Kenneth may have needed a nickname to distinguish him from his father, hence Keachie; I wonder if this was a family name as I cannot see it was in widespread use.



This is 9 Queen Street today, River Ness is at the far end of the street.

The second glimpse of Keachie is aged 22, on his wedding day in Glasgow, at St Mary’s Cathedral – on Great Western Road, locals will know there are two churches by Kelvinbridge with prominent steeples and the Cathedral is the one closer to Glasgow. His occupation is an apprentice baker and he is marrying 19-year old Agnes Hayes on 2nd July 1937 (the day pilot Amelia Earhart disappeared). Agnes, daughter of a lawyer, has as her occupation a creamery worker.



The third glimpse, is the 1940 Valuation Roll for New Kilpatrick where Mrs Agnes Grant is listed as the proprietor of 48 Killermont Road, Bearsden. This is presumably the family home Keachie and Agnes established before he was called up for duty in the war.

The final glimpse jumps the story forward to 1944, Keachie is aged 28. He is in the Army Catering Corps, attached to a royal artillery regiment somewhere in either Italy or Sicily. Something happened to put Keachie in hospital, although we know it wasn’t due to a battle wound. He is to be evacuated, presumably for further treatment or rest, to Algeria flying from Catania in Sicily to Maison Balance in Algeria (now the main airport at Algiers). It’s Thursday 24th February 1944. He is put in a Dakota transport aircraft adapted for carrying hospitalised patients with a doctor and a nurse on board. The weather is poor with low cloud and some ground fog and the plane’s direct route is across Sicily. A route is mapped flying by instruments and the plane takes off shortly before 9am. For reasons that are unknown, at around 9.15am the plane is so low it hits the ground, bounces, hits a hillside. As well as Keachie, everyone on board is killed: 12 other British patients, two American patients, a British doctor, American nurse and assistant and the American crew of six.



This is not the crash site but is in the general area 1 mile north west of Caltagirone.

Keachie is buried in the CWGC Cemetery at Catania in Sicily. The inscription on his grave, presumably selected by Agnes, reads, “Sweet memories of you and I together will linger in my heart forever.”



Credits for this profile of Keachie Grant: first to the knowledgeable and helpful people on the forum WW2 Talk who answered my question about what could have been the common cause of death of 14 British servicemen on the same day. Through that discussion I found Judy Barger’s excellent blog posts on the American nurses working in the evacuation service (WW2 Army Flight Nurses - 22 Apr 2023 - Judith Barger). She provided me with a lot more information and is planning a new blog post on events leading up to the crash.

For those interested in reports of the crash, please follow this link:
http://www.legendsofflightnurses.org/Uploads/Nurses/OtherInfo/Elizabeth Jane HOWREN4.pdf

 

Thank you for suggesting this - I was following another thread on WW2 Talk and someone had posted pics of a service record they had obtained, honestly I was a bit disappointed at how little there was. Have I been too easily put off?

 

David try this link:
WW2 Army Flight Nurses - 22 Apr 2023 - Judith Barger
Judy Barger has written a whole series of posts (and a book) - I think she might be the interviewer on your second link? In addition, having contacted her asking for more information, she is a prompt and very helpful source!