MEM24877 - World War Two Stirling crash site near Bridgetown (Monument)

A Stirling Bomber was noted to have crashed at SS 929 329 (wartime map reference vT367546) at 00:04am on 27 January 1944. The wreckage was scattered for up to three and a half miles in an easterly direction. The Stirling (serial number EH933, aircraft identifier letter ‘A’) of 1660 Heavy Conversion Unit was on a training exercise, flying from RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire and had eight crew members on board, including an additional flight engineer. All bar one were members of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (the navigator, Sgt Claude Tomkinson, had joined the Auxiliary Air Force in 1938). However, the pilot, Sergeant Ronald Partridge, while having previous flying experience, had nonetheless only spent six hours flying Stirling aircraft. The plane was undertaking a navigational cross country exercise and was on the fourth part of the journey (Sidmouth to Ilfracombe) when it flew off course and then entered a steep dive, eventually breaking up in flight and with the main body of the aircraft crashing on to the hill above Bridgetown just after midnight, bursting into flames. All members of the crew perished in the crash and their bodies recovered from the site. [1] A memorial was planned to be placed next to a tree that is thought to have been deformed by the wreckage of the crash, and this was installed in 2021. In 2025, improved signage guiding visitors to the memorial site is planned. [2] The memorial was unveiled in June 2025, and further research into the crash and the crew has taken place, including tracing of relatives. The memorial records the names of all eight men: Sgt Ronald Partridge (pilot, from Oxford), Sgt Claude Tomkinson (navigator, from Liverpool), Sgt Thomas Jones (bomb aimer, from St Helens), Sgt Ben Ackroyd (wireless operator/air gunner, from Huddersfield), Sgt Alfred Thursby (flight engineer, from Coventry), Sgt Herbert Hewitt (flight engineer, from Workington), Sgt John Kerry (mid upper gunner, from Nottingham), and Sgt Richard Street (rear gunner, from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire). [3]