Date:	Friday 29 August 1941
Time:	day
Type:	Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I
Owner/operator:	255 Sqn RAF
Registration:	N3378
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Bleaklow Stones, Bleaklow, Derbyshire, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, East Lothian, Scotland.
Destination airport:	RAF Hibaldstow, Lincolnshire

Narrative:
Boulton Paul Defiant N3378: Crashed in the Pennines near the western end of the Woodhead Tunnel 29th August 1941. Both crew initially posted as "missing believed killed". On the 30th August a search by No.255 Sqn involved nine Beaufighters and one Defiant along with two aircraft from an Army Co-operation squadron stationed near York. It was only on the 5 September 1941 that Hibaldstow received a signal from Turnhouse stating that P/O Craig had taken off with a passenger onboard.

Further searches revealed nothing and eventually the air search was stood down. On the 23rd September the crash site was discovered by two shepherds, soon after the two bodies were recovered to the mortuary at Glossop Police Station where they were identified and then sent for burial in Lincolnshire

It was reported that before flying off track on the flight from Turnhouse that the aircraft may have been engaged by fighter aircraft in the Durham area. However evidence of this is unconfirmed and appears to come from a casualty signal sent to No.255 Sqn from No.10 Balloon Centre in Sheffield who carried out the initial RAF casualty action.
Crew:
P/O (45843) James CRAIG (pilot) RAFVR - killed
AC1 (1103778) George Daniel HEMPSTEAD (A/G) RAFVR - killed

Flying from RAF Turnhouse (now Edinburgh Airport) to RAF Hibaldstow in Lincolnshire, Defiant N3378 crashed on Bleaklow while descending through low cloud, 46 miles off track. The circumstances are not clear but it likely that thunderstorms along the proposed route down the east coast forced P/O Craig to fly on a more westerly course and he flew into Bleaklow in poor visibility.

Pilot Officer James Craig and Aircraftman Second Class George Daniel Hempstead (a passenger in the gun turret) both initially survived the crash but were badly injured and unable to seek help. They died and their bodies were found sitting beside the wrecked Defiant a month later.

There is an apocryphal story that the Defiant was shot down by friendly fire from a Spitfire but there is no evidence to support it. As Pat Cunningham says, a greater mystery is how it came to be that the wreck and the crew were not found for over a month, despite immediately being reported missing. The crash site is at a place called ‘Near Bleaklow Stones’ which although on a vast featureless moor, is still only two miles from the nearest road and the crash happened in early autumn, not the middle of winter.

Some of the remains at the crash site of Defiant N3378 were moved to a display at the Boulton Paul Association museum in Wolverhampton to create a diorama. The museum has since closed (in 2012) and the wreckage of N3378 is believed to have gone to the Kent Battle of Britain Museum.

1. Royal Air Force Aircraft N1000-N9999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1977 p 20)
2. Ron Collier, & Roni Wilkinson, (1995). Dark Peak Aircraft Wrecks. Vol. 1 (Revised ed.). Wharncliffe Books. ISBN 0850524571.
3. RAF 255 Squadron ORB for August 1941: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 27/1518/16: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8437695
4. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 81/8695: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16924537
5. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2358530/james-craig/
6. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2416716/george-daniel-hempstead/
7. https://aircrashsites.co.uk/boulton-paul-defiant-n3378-on-bleaklow/#:~:text=Defiant%20N3378%20served%20with%20255,armament%20being%20the%20turret%20guns.
8. https://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/crash_sites/peak-district/boulton-paul-defiant-n3378-bleaklow-stones/
9. https://peakwreckhunters.blogspot.com/2018/09/boulton-paul-defiant-mki-n3378.html
10. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/457762
11. http://www.wtdwhd.co.uk/crash%20details/Peak%20District/Bleaklow2.html
12. http://www.255.org.uk/ww2-england.html#hibaldstow
13. https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1431918&resourceID=19191
14. https://thewanderingwildflower.co.uk/alport-moor-and-bleaklow-walking-route/
15. https://www.facebook.com/people/Boulton-Paul-Aircraft/100064990682276/
16. https://www.northlincsweb.net/RAFElshamWolds/html/kirton-in-lindsey_cemetery_ww2_register.html
17. https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/aircraft-wrecks-in-the-peak-district-july-2020-pic-heavy.124483/post-1283775
18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleaklow

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
21-Mar-2016 16:06	Nepa	Added
23-Mar-2016 16:56	Next	Updated [Departure airport, Destination airport]