Lincolnshire Echo, Thursday 29th March 1945: "Carried Bomb into RAF Dormitory- Lincs Inquest Story Of Sergt’s Fatal Error. How an R.A.F. flight sergeant walked into a sleeping block at a Lincolnshire station, climbed out of a window with a bomb in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other, was described to the Lincoln South District Coroner (Mr. Reynolds Scorer) yesterday, when he was told that 30 seconds later there was an explosion outside the window and the sergeant was dead. The dead man was Herbert Kitchener Hurst (28) whose home is at 97 Scotchbar Lane, Prescott and was a constable in the Lancashire Constabulary before he joined the R.A.F. in which he was a bomb aimer. Returning a verdict of “accidental death” the coroner observed: “I can only find that this unfortunate man died from severe injuries received from a bomb or missile with which he was in some way interfering. “I cannot think how a man of his experience should have attempted to deal with a bomb with a pair of pliers. The station officer has told us that the orders were most explicit. Frederick William Dove, an armaments worker at the aerodrome, related that about 2.30 on the afternoon of Monday, March 26, Hurst called at his office and placed the missile on the table. Coroner: You knew it was charged? Dove: Not with certainty. I thought it was dangerous inasmuch as any missile is dangerous. He did not tell me where he got it and I did not ask him. Dove said he presumed that Hurst had brought it to the station armaments officer and he (Dove) directed him to take it to Mr. Scott at the Station H.Q. Hurst intimated that would do so and left. “Don't you think it would have been better you had left it on the table and sent for someone?'’ asked Police Inspector Duckles. “It might have been in view of what happened,” replied Dove. Inspector Duckles: This is a dangerous thing and yet you let this man walk away with it. Dove: I was not going to take possession of it, because it was not within my province. Coroner: Were you the appropriate person for him to have brought it to?—No, he should have brought it to the station armoury. “But isn’t your office at the armoury?" asked Inspector Duckles.—Dove agreed that it was so. Squadron Leader F. W. Dovledge intervened to point out that Dove was a subordinate. He could have kept the missile, but it was not his duty to so. At 3.30 the same day, Flight- Sergeant Harry Bigwood was lying on his bed in the sleeping quarters when Hurst entered and went to his bed. Hurst stayed 30 or 40 seconds, and then walked past him to the far end and climbed out of a window. He had in his left hand a bomb- or whatever it was- and a pair of pliers in his right hand. Bigwood went on, “Thirty seconds later I heard an explosion. I looked out of the window and saw Hurst. He was dead.” James Leonard Hunter Scott, an inspector at the aerodrome, said he was not on the camp on the afternoon of the accident. The appropriate action to have taken, he said, would have been to inform the station armaments officer when Hurst called. He explained that. Dove was under a misapprehension in thinking that he (Scott) knew about bombs and shells. It was not Dove's fault that he was wrong. Squadron-Leader A. J. Harker, medical officer at the station, said he saw Hurst a week ago and he was perfectly fit. The injuries were consistent with an accidental bomb-explosion. |