KENNETH MCKEE (grave 61)

Kenneth (right), with his brother Gordon (left).

I was born in Ingersoll, Ontario in Canada and I had lived there all my life up until joining the Royal Canadian Air Force. My mother was called Vera and my father, Fred McKee had been a soldier in the First World War and had been the President of the Ingersoll branch of the Canadian Legion.

I attended the Ingersoll Collegiate Institute and was very interested in sports. Before joining the Air Force, I worked as a machinist for the Morrow Screw and Nut Company, where I also played for the company softball team.

I completed all my Air Force training in Canada, before departing for England in September 1941. In my application to join the RCAF, I quoted the following as my reason for doing so:

“I believe it is my duty to my king and country to do all that I can to help win the war. It is my opinion that this can best be accomplished as a member of  the RCAF”.

The Hampden was a medium bomber with a crew of 4. Pilot, Navigator, Wireless Operator/gunner and a further gunner. Although it was a vast improvement on the biplanes 49 Squadron had been flying just before the war opened, in reality it was already obsolete. Early daylight raids had been a disaster, the bomber was too slow to evade German fighters and its guns were no match for the Germans either. The distinctive fuselage, designed to give the aircraft a sleek, aerodynamic profile, led to the Hampden earning its nickname of “The Flying suitcase”.

Crew: 4
Span: 21.09 m
Length: 16.32 m
Height: 4.37 m
Wing area: 63.90 m²
Empty weight: 5,344 kg
Loaded weight: 8,508 kg
Engine: 2 x Bristol Pegasus XVIII 9-cylinder radial engines
Engine power: 980hp each
Maximum speed: 410 km/h
Rate of climb: 5.00 m/s
Range normal: 1,095 km
4 or 6 x 7.7mm Vickers K machine guns (1 flexible, 1 nose, 1 or 2 dorsal, 1 or 2 ventral)
1,814kg of bombs/mines or 1 x 18in torpedo

I was the Wireless Operator and Air Gunner of this aircraft.

To a newly qualified pilot, such as ours, flying on instruments in the dark could be an extremely daunting prospect. But for my pilot, this seems to have been a particular problem, as shortly before this accident he had been to see the Station Commander expressing doubts in his own ability to fly at night. The Station Commander reassured him that there was no reason to be troubled and that he should continue with his night flying training.

We had taken off from RAF Upwood on a routine night training sortie. At 4000ft, we encountered cloud and decided to climb through it, to get to the clear skies above. Whilst still in cloud, passing 10’000ft, control of the aircraft was lost and the aircraft entered a spin. One of the gunners managed to escape the aircraft and survived, but the rest of the crew could not overcome the massive forces being exerted upon them by the spinning aircraft. Hampden P2120 crashed near Saxilby in Lincolnshire, killing the 3 remaining crew, who are all buried at Scampton.