Vickers Wellington Mk.IC R1093 of No.20 Operational Training Unit crashed on Carn Garbh to the west of Brora on the 30th July 1941

 

Peter Bernard Augustin de Normanville	Pilot Officer	Pilot	Survived
Charles Frederick Richards	Sergeant	Pilot	Killed
Peter Alderson DFM	Pilot Officer	Observer	Killed
Charles Stuart Gibsone Crombie	Sergeant RCAF	Wireless Operator / Air Gunner	Survived
Stuart St Helier Gwyllym Dunn	Sergeant RCAF	Wireless Operator / Air Gunner	Killed
Kenneth John Seaman	Sergeant	Air Gunner	Killed

 

The crew were on a navigation training flight from RAF Lossiemouth when they flew into the north western end of Carn Garbh, a 1770ft high hill to the west of Brora and north of Gordonbush, a short way below its summit killed all but two of the men onboard.

Pilot Officer de Normanville had only recently been commissioned at the time of the crash. After completing his training at No.20 OTU he was transferred to No.7 Squadron at Oakington where he flew a number of operational sorties before trace of him (and his crew) in their records ends in January 1942. At some point after surviving this accident he went on to be involved in a second more serious incident following which he left the RAF on medical grounds, this appeared in the London Gazette on the 17th November 1942. The only incident he is recorded as being involved in at No.7 Sqn occurred in December 1941 when the aircraft he was 2nd pilot of was hit by anti-aircraft fire seriously wounding two of the crew and causing sufficient damage to the airframe that it was written off, however he continued flying after this. After leaving the RAF he entered service as a navigator with the Royal Navy aboard Motor Torpedo Boats and after the war he became a documentary film maker working with various companies and on a multitude of projects, including a film about high speed flight for the RAF in 1956 and the 50th Anniversary of jet powered flight in the UK for Rolls Royce. He died at the age of 76 in 1999.

Sergeant Crombie was later killed while serving in Africa, he is buried in Fajara War Cemetery in Gambia.

Pilot Officer Alderson had received his Distinguished Flying Medal in November 1940 while serving with No.15 Squadron, a unit which is now stationed at RAF Lossiemouth as the Tornado OCU, he was commissioned in February 1941.