LEST WE FORGET
Flight Sergeant Daniel Edward VENESS
Service No: 411620
Born: Manilla NSW, 15 September 1910
Enlisted in the RAAF: 24 May 1941
Unit: No. 1652 Conversion Unit (RAF), RAF Station Marston Moor
Died: Aircraft Accident (No. 1652 Conversion Unit Halifax aircraft L9571), Marston Moor, 25 May 1943, Aged 32 Years
Buried: Harrogate (Stonefall) Cemetery, Yorkshire
CWGC Additional Information: Son of Arthur Thomas Veness and Eliza Veness; husband of Joanna May Veness, of Kirribilli, New South Wales, Australia
Roll of Honour: Windsor VIC
Remembered: Panel 131, Commemorative Area, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
Remembered: Gosford Cenotaph, Gosford NSW
Remembered: Freemans Reach War Memorial, Freeman’s Reach NSW
At 0948 hours on 25 May 1943, Halifax L9571 took off from Marston Moor on a check dual flight. On take-off the port inner engine caught fire, and the pilot feathered the engine but was apparently unable to put out the flames. Being a port motor this necessitated pumping up the undercarriage and flaps. The Pilot tried to regain the aerodrome to make a forced landing, but the aircraft was unable to maintain height. His approach took him directly over Tockwith village, and, in the opinion n of the Officer investigating the crash, the pilot in his effort to clear the village, resulted in the speed dropping off and the aircraft stalled, just before reaching the aerodrome boundary, hitting the roof of the Tockwith vicarage on the eastern side of the airfield. A later Inquiry into the accident found “that the engine caught fire because of a maker’s defect.”
The crew members of L9571 were:
Sergeant Frederick William Barns (927683) (RAFVR) (Flight Engineer)
Sergeant T F King (1557902) (RAFVR) (Air Gunner) Injured
Flying Officer Alistair Ian Taylor Moir DFC (137208) (RAFVR) (Instructor Pilot)
Flight Sergeant Daniel Edward Veness (411620) (Pilot under instruction)
Sergeant James Winchester (1476370) (RAF) (Wireless Air Gunner) Injured, Died: 4 September 1943
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, 166/42/21
Register of War Memorials in New South Wales On-Line