Artwork · 1944
Wreckage of the Halifax JP 224 Bomber
Fragments of a British supply-drop aircraft that crashed in April 1944 while flying supplies to the Home Army.
Content language
Among the World War II memorabilia on the historical exhibition is the wreckage of the Halifax JP 224 bomber. It was a British Handley Page Halifax aircraft used to drop supplies to the Polish underground.
The aircraft belonged to RAF Special Duties Squadron 148. It took off from the Campo Casale airfield in Brindisi, Italy, bound for a Home Army outpost code-named "Klacz" near Opole Lubelskie. On 23 April 1944 it crashed in the village of Tarnogóra, about 30 km south of Stalowa Wola.
About twenty minutes before the planned supply drop, two of the four engines failed. The pilot ordered the cargo to be jettisoned, but a third engine soon stopped. Storey ordered the crew to bail out by parachute. The aircraft crashed on the outskirts of Tarnogóra.
The seven-man crew was commanded by pilot Thomas Storey, flying with Edward Elkington-Smith, Oscar Congdon, Walter Davis, Patrick Stradling, Jim Hughes and Charles Keen. All of the airmen survived the crash. Four of them were taken in by partisans, two were captured by the Germans and one made his own way to the Polish resistance.
Question 1 of 2
On which day did the Halifax JP 224 crash?
- Location
- Exhibition of the History of the Town and Region, manor attic
- Halifax JP 224
- RAF
- Home Army
- supply drops
- World War II