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19
Dec 2023
Wreath laid in Killinghall to honour heroic Harrogate airman
A wreath was laid in a churchyard in Killinghall on Sunday to mark the 80th anniversary of the death of a local RAF pilot in the Second World War.
Flying officer Ted Thackway lost his life on Black Thursday — the worst night in British military aviation history. He was just 23 years old.
Bilton-born Ted was part of the elite RAF Pathfinder force that guided British bombers to their targets.
He was one of five men killed flying back to Britain from Berlin when their Lancaster crashed in dense fog near Hardwick, east of their home airfield of RAF Station Bourn. Two members of the crew survived. Fifty members of the Pathfinders crews died on the night of December 16 and 17 due to fog and low cloud.
Ted Thackway. Pic: rafpathfinders.com
Relatives laid a wreath on Ted's grave at St Thomas the Apostle in Killinghall, where his headstone is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Debbie Havercroft said her father, who died in 2021, brought them up on tales about Ted, whose youthfulness and modest upbringing made him something of a rarity among RAF officers.
Nick Wrightson, who lives in Birstwirth, said Ted grew up in Killinghall and Bilton and left school at 15 before joining the RAF in 1939 aged 19.
Ted (left) with his family in Bilton in 1938. Pic: www.rafpathfinders.com
His funeral was held at St John’s in Bilton, where Ted had been a choir boy, and later that day he was buried at Killinghall, where his mother had grown up. His grandfather had been churchwarden at St Thomas.
Ted's mother Elsie met a Canadian after the war, remarried and moved to a town called Egansville, where a commemoration also took place marking the 80th anniversary of his death.
You can read more about Ted and Black Thursday here.
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