Monday 11th August 1952 Dundee Scotland
71 Pitkerro Road Dundee was the home of the Kidd family. Dundee is almost 500km north of Letwell, and on the Monday afternoon, Mrs Kidd had visitors to entertain. Around mid afternoon, she answered a knock on the door to find that a telegram had been sent to her. It is hard to imagine her anguished feelings as she read the message, a short message which told her that her only son John had been killed in a flying accident earlier in the day. She was able to telephone her husband, who left his sports shop in the high street, and returned to the distressed household.
Sheila
Kidd is Johns elder sister, and after leaving her work in the city, she returned
home by way of the park ponds that are across from their home. She noticed an
unusual number of cars drawn up outside their house, and as she approached,
a neighbors boy came towards her and said "your John is dead". The
truth of this statement did not immediately register with Sheila, for it was
only the evening before that she had gone down to the railway station with her
brother as he left for his journey back to Doncaster after his few days of leave
had ended. She entered the house only to find that the ill judged message just
delivered to her, was indeed horribly true.
The following day, the Dundee Courier carried this short report on the accident.
Several days later, family and friends gathered together to take part in the funeral service. RAF officers from Finningley including Johns friend and fellow officer, Peter ???? travelled to Dundee to take part in the service.
John had spent much of his previous weeks leave in the company of his close friend Bill Clark. Bill wrote from his home in Australia with a letter to John's sister Shiela. I quote his words.
It is strange that someone should research John's accident 50 years after the event. I can recall that I was extremely shocked when your father phoned me with the news of his death. I spoke to the Officer from the RAF who attended John's funeral and my conclusion was that engine failure or similar fault was the cause. I remember discussing plane safety with John on his last visit and he was both confident and enthusiastic of his ability to pilot the plane. He loved flying. John mentioned nothing relating to what his activities might be upon his return from leave. I never heard of any inquiry into the crash. I do recall the RAF officer's comment that John's accident was another death in the fight against the enemy! I remember thinking who was this enemy?
The Kidd family received scant information on the cause of the accident. The RAF seemed to have felt no responsibility for alleviating the trauma suffered by the family. When I finally made contact with John's sister, which was just before the 50th anniversary of the accident, she had told me that up to that time she had no knowledge of the location of the crash site and no real idea of what the sequence of events were on the day of her brothers death. The family had no details of the inquest, nor of the court of inquiry passed onto them.
I
decided to collect as much information as I could about the events of that day,
and present them in this format as a recognition of cost paid by just one pilot
and his family for the Meteor training programme of the 1950's.
It came as quite a shock to me when I discovered that more than 400 RAF pilots and navigators had been killed whilst flying in this type of aircraft. By 1952 150 Meteors per year were crashing, the worst day being 9th September 1952, when 5 crashed all in different locations within the space of 24 hours. The loss of three aircraft in one day happened on a number of occasions. This attrition rate did not go unchallenged in the press, and even questions were asked in the House of Commons. It seems incredible when set against today's high safety standards that such a system was allowed to operate. In trying to understand the cause of the accident that befell PO. John Kidd, I began by looking at the flying training programme that he followed.
dJohnny Kidd.... picture taken on confirmation of commission