Mosquito crash – Tilty 1944
In February 1944 a de Havilland Mosquito aircraft on a test flight crashed near the top of Tilty Hill. The Canadian pilot, Flying Officer Keith McCormick, died in the crash and the RAF Navigator, Pilot Officer William Nixon, managed to bail out just before the aircraft crashed. Keith McCormick was from Ripley, Ontario, and his story has been published in a Canadian newspaper, the Kincardine Record. Click the link below for the article, published on 8th November 2020:
Historian in England recounts story of Ripley soldier who died in 1944
FO Keith MacCormick
The article is based on Darren Stone’s report into the crash, which is published in the ‘All Our Stories’ section of this website here: Mosquito Crash. The report includes material from William Nixon’s records about the crash, kindly supplied by his son.
PEACE OAK
In 1995, to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the birth of the United Nations, Uttlesford District Council offered all parish councils an oak tree sapling to plant in remembrance. Tilty Parish Meeting chose to plant their tree in the field near the site of the plane crash, where Flying Officer McCormick had died. William Nixon, then 82 years old, came with his son to the planting of this tree. The tree is on private land, but is close to the road and can be seen through a gap in the hedge (on the right, going up the hill towards Tilty Grange).
Last updated 11th November 2020
