Darlington's tribute to hero airman McMullen 78 years on

At about 8.48pm on January 13, 1945, Pilot Officer William McMullen was at the controls of his blazing Lancaster bomber as it flew frighteningly low over the rooftops of houses in the Yarm Road area of Darlington.

Down below, in The Stray, was Phenie Gilligan with her baby, Michael, who worked as a sub-editor for The Northern Echo for many years. She heard the atrocious din and, like much of this end of Darlington, rushed outside to see what was causing it, with baby Michael in her arms.

An appalling sight greeted her. The fire in the Lancaster had broken out over Acklam, Middlesbrough, at 8.35pm in the outer port engine, and as it took hold of the wing, McMullen’s six-man Canadian crew had baled out, landing safely between Elton and Sadberge.

Before the last man, Sgt Lew Lewellin, the engineer, jumped, he shouted over to McMullen (above) in the cockpit that he, too, needed to abandon ship but, according to information released immediately after the fatal outcome of the incident, McMullen had shouted back: “There’s only me for it. There are thousands down below.”

He stayed at the controls of the burning plane and seems to have managed to change its westward course over Darlington town centre so that it swung eastwards, towards his base of RAF Middleton St George.

This brought him over the houses of the Yarm Road area which, the people of Darlington believed, he was trying to avoid as he sought farmland for a crash landing.

READ MORE: THE FULL McMULLEN STORY

Phenie saw the Lancaster burning brilliant white in the black night sky as it came over her in The Stray.

“She thought they were going to die, the plane was so close and low,” said Phenie’s daughter Kathleen Matthews who was born some years afterwards. “She didn’t think it would miss all the houses.”

Chris Lloyd, of The Northern Echo, tells the McMullen story before the silence. Picture: David Thompson

But with McMullen, who himself had a five-year-old daughter back home in Toronto, at the controls it did. It shot over the last houses, which had only just been erected for key workers from the Aycliffe Royal Ordnance Factory, before plummeting nose first into a field belonging to Lingfield Farm at 8.49pm. McMullen was killed on impact.

“So I have a lot to thank him for,” said Kathleen. “If he hadn’t stayed with the plane, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

She was among those who held a minute’s silence last Friday at the precise moment 78 years earlier McMullen had lost control of the Lancaster and plunged to his death. They stood beside the memorial on McMullen Road, which is about 500 yards from the crash site, as Yvonne Wood, of the Durham Police Band, played the last post.

Bugler Yvonne Wood, of the Durham Police Band, sounds the Last Post. Picture: David Thompson 

Darlington mayor Anne-Marie Currie, Durham Police Firthmoor Office PCSO’s Caroline Douglas and Rebecca Heseltine, Barry Williams, Standard Bearer for the Darlington Branch of the Royal British Legion, Phil Chinery, Standard Bearer for the Stockton & Thornaby Branch of the Royal Air Forces Association, John Smith, Chairman of the Darlington Branch of the Royal British Legion, Peter Gibson, Darlington MP, and Cllr Jonathan Dulston, leader of Darlington council. Picture: Geoff Hill

Wreaths were laid at the memorial by Darlington mayor, Anne-Marie Curry; MP Peter Gibson; leader of the council, Cllr Jonathan Dulston; local beat police officers Caroline Douglas and Rebecca Heseltine; John Smith, the chairman of the Darlington branch of the Royal British Legion, plus many other members of the public who, like Kathleen, have their own personal connection to those incredible events that took place in the night sky exactly 78 years ago.

READ MORE: PARLIAMENT MOVED BY McMULLEN'S STORY

Darlington MP Peter Gibson lays a wreath. Picture: David Thompson