Liverpool, 1941

Thursday, August 28, 1941
(Four Pennfield Airmen Killed in Crashes Near Liverpool)

Two R.C.A.F. training planes based at No. 2 Air Navigation
School at Pennfield Ridge were lost early Monday morning in
crashes near Liverpool, Nova Scotia, but five of the nine men
comprising the crews escaped, apparently with slight injury.

The four men killed were Fli.-Lt. W.S.L. Smallman, R.A.F.,
the pilot; Sgt. S. Street, another Briton; Sgt. Observer
G.T.S. Woodham, Huronville, Sask., and A.C.G.J. Elliot, Calgary,
wireless operator.

Information from various sources indicated that a plane out of
Pennfield on night maneuvers over Nova Scotia lost its bearings
and ran out of fuel. The five men aboard bailed out and landed safely,
although one of them, Sgt. J.H. McKay, sustained a fractured arm when
he struck the tail in getting out.

Shortly afterwards other planes set out from Pennfield to search for
the missing machine. One of them sighted a bonfire set in a gravel
pit near Liverpool by F.O.J. Barneson, pilot of the missing plane,
evidently swooped down to signal, and crashed into an orchard at
Beech Hill, six miles from Liverpool. The four occupants were
instantly killed and the plane was destroyed by fire. The wreckage
of the first plane was also found near Beach Hill. The two crashes
followed one another within an hour before dawn Monday.

The five who escaped by parachute were F.O.J. Barneson,
San Francisco, the pilot; Sgt. J.H. McKay, Montreal; Sgt. D.J.
Robertson, Cornwall, Ont.; Sgt. J