Flight Sergeant Hugh Cecil Martin R.A.F.
Son of John Irvine and Sarah Skelly Martin, nee Beattie of Springfield House, Carryduff County Down, Northern Ireland.
Killed in action 6th October 1944. Interred in the Military Cemetery, Kanburi.
He is commemorated on the family headstone in the First Presbyterian Churchyard / Cemetery, Saintfield, County Down Northern Ireland
CWGC and other data
Sergeant Air Gunner 1796212 Hugh Cecil Martin. Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve attached to 355 Squadron.
He was part crew of 11 in a Liberator E.V. 940. B-24 Heavy Bomber
which crashed after a low flying bombing attack on a railway station at Uttaradit Railway Yards on the 06 October 1944 with the loss of 09 lives.
He is at rest in Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand
Some notes taken from Alfred Hunter Milne service records. (One of the deceased)
LIBERATOR CRASH Thailand 1943
Extract from a report dated 9th October 1944 from No 355 Squadron.
Subject: Loss on Operation of Liberator E.V. 940
Liberator E.V. 940 (Captain – Flight Sergeant Harrison was detailed to fly as No.2 in a box of four aircraft of 355 Squadron led by Squadron Leader MacDougall on a low-level dive bomb attack on locomotives on the Bangkok-Lampang railway. For this, several days had previously been spent in practising this form of attack with 100lb “spiked” bombs. At 1610 hours two locomotives were sighted in the station at UTTARDIT. The formation immediately attacked from 1500 feet diving down to 300 feet in line astern. No 1 and 2. With 5 machine gun fire and No. 3 and 4 with bombs. On the second run No.2 having pulled ahead of the leader was ordered to bomb first, the leader followed him in No 2 dropped his bombs across the target but pulled up sharply exposing himself to fire from a M.G. nest just beyond the target. One of the reports seeing tracer from the M.G. nest going into No 2 and the aircraft steepened it climbing turn to 90 degrees and slipped inwards out of control. The aircraft blew up on impact with the ground four miles North of UTTARADIT Railway Station. Disintegration was complete and was followed immediately by fire so that none of the crew have survived.
End of extract
Other notes from his records.
The nine bodies were buried near the crash scene by the 9th Thai Calvary Division 7 kilometres Nort West of Utteradit
The Liberator was carrying a crew of eleven, seven of which died at the scene and another nearby.
Three parachuted out, two survived the other one, his parachute failed to open and was killed. The two survivors were taken prisoners by the Siamese Forces and sent to Bangkok.
