Leslie Irwin's Story.
Leslie was born to parents Willis and Hannah Armstrong on 9 February 1914 in Blaine Lake, Saskatchewan. He was educated at Ridley College, St. Catharines.After completing his education, he worked as an office clerk for an insurance company. He enlisted in the RCAF at Toronto on 17 December 1940. He went to the Technical Training School, St. Thomas on 7th January 1941. To No.1 ITS, 6 March 1941; graduated and promoted LAC, 10 April 1941; to No.1 EFTS, 11 April 1941; to No.5 SFTS, 29 May 1941; graduated and received wings 8 August 1941; commissioned the next day. He went to Trenton on 10th August 1941 then to No.5 SFTS on 28th October 1941. He served as an instructor until June 1944 when he was posted overseas
. He received a commendation in the King’s Birthday Honours list in 1944 in recognition of his contribution to pilot training. He departed Canada on 16th June 1944 and arrived in UK on 24th June 1944. On 5th September 1944 he was posted to 11 (P) AFU at Calveley in Cheshire for advanced pilot training. On 3rd October 1944 he was attached to 1531 Beam Approach Training Flight located at RAF Cranage in Cheshire.
Beam Approach was a landing aid system intended to assist pilots to land aircraft in conditions of poor visibility.
On 6th October 1944 he was killed along with his instructor and another trainee when the Airspeed Oxford serial DF330 they were flying in crashed on landing approach at Cranage hitting a tree and a house. The cause of the crash was determined to be bad airmanship with the approach being too low resulting in impact with a tree.
Leslie was buried at the RAF Regional Cemetery at Blacon, Chester
I would like to thank the members of the WW2Talk.com forum for their considerable assistance in the research of this story.
Accident Report 1
Accident Report 2
Airspeed Oxford adapted for Beam Approach training
Beam Approach