Edward Alan's Story.
Edward Alan Opie was born on 10th June 1913 June in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada to parents Edward and Margaret but grew up in Red Deer, Alberta where he worked on his father’s farm after finishing his education. In 1940 Allan joined the militia then on 7th October 1941 he enlisted in the RCAF where he trained as an Air Bomber at 3 ITS and 17 EFTS before leaving Canada for UK on 8th April 1943 arriving in England on 17th April 1943. On 15th June 1943 he was posted to 2 (O) AFU at RAF Millom in Cumberland for advanced training in Avro Ansons then on 13th July 1943 he was posted to 12 OTU at RAF Chipping Warden for operational training in Wellington bombers.The loss of Wellington BJ664
On 13th September 1943 Edward was part of an 8 man crew made up of 5 trainees and 3 instructors ( all RAF apart from Allan) assigned to Wellington BJ664 for a cross-country exercise, 4 aircraft daytime training exercise. The aircraft were instructed to fly from base to Reading, Conwy, Reading then return to base at 1700hrs. The pilots were instructed that they were likely to encounter thunderstorms on route and were instructed to avoid flying through any storms. However the pilot of BJ664, Fl/Lt T.R. Fairchild decided to fly directly through a thunderstorm over Shropshire. The aircraft was hit by lightning, caught fire and crashed into Borrow Iron Age fort near Aston-on- Clun with the loss of all 8 men on board. An enquiry found that the accident occurred due to the pilot not following instructions to avoid flying through the storm and it was noted that the other 3 aircraft on the exercise managed to avoid the storm by making course adjustments. The enquiry suggested that the pilot may have decided to pass through the storm in order to maintain the scheduled arrival time of 1700hrs at base but it was also noted that the other aircraft managed to maintain schedule without passing through the storm. Edward was buried at the RAF Regional Cemetery at Chester.
Research by Steve Merrill
Accident Form 1
Accident Form 2
Accident Form 3
Accident Form 4
Enquiry 1
Enquiry 2
Enquiry 3
Enquiry 4
Newspaper report