LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Maxwell Bruce WAUGH
Service No: 428873
Born: Young NSW, 1 February 1922
Enlisted in the RAAF: 12 October 1942
Unit: No. 1652 Conversion Unit (RAF), RAF Station Marston Moor
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 1652 Conversion Unit Halifax aircraft BB360), Yorkshire, 17 September 1944, Aged 22 Years
Buried: Harrogate (Stonefall) Cemetery, Yorkshire
CWGC Additional Information: Son of William John and Florence Eva Waugh of Koorawatha, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Koorawatha NSW
Remembered: Panel 132, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
On 17 September 1944, Halifax BB360 took off from Marston Moor heading east south east to practice three-engine circuits. At 1512 hours on an approach to Ruffield airfield, at 1,000 feet and with its wheels down, the aircraft dived into the ground, bursting into flames near the hamlet of Angram, five miles west south west from the centre of York. All nine crew members were killed.
Accident investigators found a pin with a ferrule which they concluded had shorn off from an elevator control joint.
The crew members of BB360 were:
Flight Lieutenant Arthur Albert Bacon (115404) (RAFVR) (Pilot under instruction)
Flying Officer Denis Graham Clough (162049) (RAFVR) (Navigator)
Sergeant Derek Eugene Ell (3030988) (RAFVR) (Flight Engineer)
Sergeant John Duff Forbes (1826864) (RAFVR) (Air Gunner)
Flying Officer James Lewis Fox (149196) (RAFVR) (Air Bomber)
Sergeant William Goodbrand (1790117) (RAF) (Air Gunner)
Flying Officer Edward Fred Hutchinson Haly DFC (144463) (RAFVR) (Instructor Pilot)
Sergeant James Robert McCarthy (3031377) (RAFVR) (Flight Engineer)
Flight Sergeant Maxwell Bruce Waugh (428873) (Wireless Operator Air)
References:
Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour On-Line Records (RAAF Casualty Information compiled by Alan Storr (409804))
Commonwealth War Graves Commission On-Line Records
Department of Veterans’ Affairs On-Line WWII Nominal Roll
National Archives of Australia On-Line Record A705, 166/43/856