b'Wilton At WarAlex MeeO n Sunday morning 10th November 2002, a smalla ring of sandbags which housed a rangefinder. This group of people gathered in the mist at the topwas a wartime observation post manned by the Vicar, of Garrowby Hill near Cot Nab Farm. They stood inRichard Fawcett, and other volunteers who were front of the Memorial to pay their respects and to laymembers of the Royal Observer Corps.poppies to the people killed in an aircrash. One of theFurther down Braygate you come to Awnhams people present was Ruth Walker. She had come fromLane, on the corner of which stands a Nissen hut. Hull in 1943 to work as a land girl at Painsthorpe, nearThis was where a searchlight battery operated during Kirby Underdale, and was working in the fields whenthe Second World War. It was erected in 1941 and the crash occurred. It was on 7th February 1944 atremained in use until 1945. Arthur West who lived in 10.15 in the morning when the accident happened.Bishop Wilton during this time remembers the site Ruth was working about three fields away when shewas manned by 12 soldiers who lived in an adjacent heard the sound of a low flying aircraft. She could notwooden hut. They operated a searchlight, powered by see the plane because of the thick cloud covering thea large generator that was on wheels, and also one hill but she heard it crash. It was a Halifax bomberLewis gun. There was another site near High Callis Mark F (D K 192) that was on a training flight fromwith a team of 8 soldiers but this only had a Lewis Rufforth, a few miles west of York. On board the planegun.was the instructor Flight Lieutenant Alfred Hodson D.F.C. aged 29, the pilot Flight Sergeant Stanley Bright aged 22, and five other crew members aged between 19 and 25. The plane coming from the north, skidded across the road (A166), which in 1944 was the present day lay-by, ending up near Cot Nab Farm. All onboard were killed instantly except one airman who died on the way to hospital in York. Unfortunately, an LNER lorry which had been collecting milk churns had just driven up Garrowby Hill. As the plane lurched across the road it collided with the lorry, killing the driver Arthur Kirkby, 32, who was from Hull. The memorial, which commemorates all those killed in the crash, was erected after many planning difficulties in May 1994 due to the efforts of airman Alun Emlyn-Jones who funded the whole cost of the monument. Alun, the crews regular bomb-aimer, should have been on the flight but was recovering from appendicitis. He had written to his commanding officer saying that he wanted to return to flying but the officer wrote back saying, Dont come back yet as we wont be flying because it is too foggy. Aluns place on the doomed plane was taken by another crew member and the rest is history.Travelling along Braygate past the vicarage towards Thorny Lane you come to a bend in the road. Opposite the bend and inside the field on the right-hand side there was a wooden hut and nearbyThe memorial as it is todayPress CuttingHowdenshire Chronicle and Pocklington Weekly NewsMay 24, 1902U sed as mounted rifles, the Imperial Yeomanry were volunteers formed in 1900 for service in the South African (or Boer) War which ended in 1902. BULLETIN 4 45'