Remains of WW2 airmen who crashed on secret mission found 76 years later an hour away from wreckage

The remains of two World War II airmen who crashed on a secret mission were found 76 years later by a family investigating a blocked septic tank, according to an investigation.

The bodies of RAF pilot Alfred Milne and navigator Eric Stubbs were discovered on a small property on the North Yorkshire Moors in March 2020, about an hour’s walk from where their plane went down.

An inquest heard that RAF men had been transporting a smaller version of the bouncing bomb designed by Barnes Wallis to Scotland when their Mosquito plane crashed in October 1944.

At the hearing into their deaths it was said their remains were found on land formerly owned by Kenneth Ward, a disgraced military historian and collector, but stopped short of establishing how they got there.

remote property it became the center of a massive police operation that continued for weeks as a field next to the house was dug up in sections for more remains.

At the time the bodies were found in March 2020, Ward had recently been released from a five-year prison term for firearms and explosives offences, and for harassing a neighbor.

In 2010, police found a large quantity of bombs and real weaponry in his Appletree Hurst Cottage in Chop Gate, including a loaded Luger pistol under his pillow and an aircraft cabin with loaded weapons running.

Previously, Ward was found to be in possession of a deceased pilot’s personal item.

The MOD confirmed that in 1999 it received an informal warning about possession of a pendant believed to have belonged to a Canadian airman who was killed in an accident in East Yorkshire during the war.

The suspected date of the crime was 1982, before the Military Remains Protection Law was passed four years later, making it illegal to search for wrecks without permission from the Defense Ministry.

Ward is known to have spent much of his life searching for aircraft wreckage and saved hundreds of memorabilia items, opening his home as an unofficial museum.

He welcomed other enthusiasts and often gave interviews to the aviation trade press in the 1990s and 2000s.

When the remains of Mr Stubbs and Mr Milne were found, Ward was arrested by North Yorkshire Police at his new home in a caravan park in York.

They discovered that his trailer was packed with military memorabilia, which were also seized.

But despite a lengthy investigation focused on how the airmen ended up at Appletree Hurst and whether other remains were present on the property, no charges were filed.

It meant relatives of the two 22-year-old pilots will never know how their remains came to be so far from the site where their de Havilland Mosquito fighter plane crashed in Bilsdale in October 1944.

The Northallerton inquest heard that police were called to the uninhabited cabin after a family who had recently moved into the adjoining property discovered a human jawbone in an open grassy area near a shed in the paddock.

The homeowner who made the find was investigating a blockage in his septic tank when he saw the bone and recognized it as human as he is a medical professional.

Forensic archaeologists confirmed that two lower jaws date from before 1950, and preventative dental work carried out by the RAF on high-flying servicemen was noted in the teeth.

There was evidence of impact injuries and discoloration from contact with a helmet or chin strap, and fragments of a harness were found nearby.

It was established that the bones had been moved from the original crash site and had been exposed to the elements for an extended period.

North Yorkshire Police Chief Detective Inspector Carol Kirk and forensic archaeologist Dr Carl Harrison confirmed the remains were classified as a “secondary deposition” and had been moved from another location.

The inquiry also heard evidence from a military historian, Richard Allenby, who said he had interviewed the only witness to the Mosquito crash, a farm worker named Ken Luck.

Mr. Luck had heard the plane’s engine sputter and seen the nose droop before it exploded on impact.

PO Milne and navigator Sergeant Stubbs had been on a secret flight from RAF Beccles in Suffolk to Turnberry in Ayrshire when their plane crashed.

After it crashed, the bomb rolled from the plane into a nearby farm orchard, but failed to detonate and was later recovered by the RAF.

Mr Luck’s account contradicted the original assumption that Mr Milne had lost control while flying over high ground with low cloud, and led the North Yorkshire coroner, Richard Watson, to conclude that mechanical failure or shortage of fuel had actually caused the accident.

The bodies of the two men were subsequently thought to have been recovered and buried, deepening the mystery of how they ended up on Ward’s land.

Watson said the men’s remains had now been buried in the south of England with full military honours.

Concluding accidental death, the coroner said: “77 years have passed since the end of World War II and 78 years since this incident.” This year would have been Sergeant Stubbs’ centenary, and PO Milne’s would have been last year.

“This is a timely reminder to all those young men who made the ultimate sacrifice during those difficult times, and it is a reminder of the cost of war.”

Information was also given about the lives of both aviators. Alfred Milne was born in London in 1921 and worked as a postal sorter before enlisting in 1941.

He was posted to Canada and rose through the ranks, eventually commissioning himself as a pilot officer and marrying his wife just a year before he died.

They had no children, but were survived by their sister and nephews.

Eric Stubbs, born 1922 in Guildford, was unmarried and “disappeared” from his family tree after the war when his sister also died childless.

He worked as a local government employee before the war.

The inquest was attended by Joan and Nicola Stubbs, descendants of a cousin.

Kenneth Ward, 75, has always denied any knowledge of how the remains of the airmen ended up in his dilapidated cabin, where he lived alone having outlived his mother and brother.

In 2021, a year after his arrest, Ward said: “They’re no further along than they were a year ago, except they’ve wasted a fortune in taxpayer money.” They told me the investigation has cost up to a million pounds.

“They were looking for souvenirs that they thought were buried in the fields for some reason, but they found nothing.

They raided my house, they took a lot of things and they haven’t returned them. I was forced to move and my life was turned upside down.