Page 738 - Reading Mercury

WOKINGHAM MAN KILLED
Leonard Amos Williams, aged 36, of 7, Crescent Road, Wokingham, a welder at
Metalair, was killed in a collision with a Canadian Army lorry on Tuesday. At the
inquest yesterday (Friday), Reading, the Coroner, Mr. J. Martin, returned an open
verdict. Frank Ziglinski, of the Canadian Army, said he turned off the main Reading
Wokingham Road, and when he had almost completed the turn he felt a bump. He
pulled up, and found the cyclist lying in the roadway. Williams died from a fractured
skull and cranial injuries, said Dr. Spencer Lawson, Deputy Casualty Officer at Royal
Berks Hospital. He was brain dead. There were no independent eye-witnesses of the
accident.

th
Fri 13 Oct
KILLED IN AIRCRAFT CRASH AT WOKINGHAM
Technical Observer Loses Life
Describing how a great sheet of flame enveloped his cabin, the intense heat
rendering him practically unconscious, a pilot of an R.A.F. aircraft appeared before
the East Berks. Coroner’s Court at Wokingham, on Wednesday to give evidence of
the death of his technical observer who was killed when the machine crashed in
flames near Woosehill Lane, Wokingham, on August 8th.
Owing to the necessity of medical treatment for severe burns and injuries sustained
while baling out of the blazing machine, the pilot, Sqd/ Ldr. A D. Miller was unable
to be present on August 10th, when the inquest had been adjourned until his recovery.
Still bearing visible signs of his recent injuries, Sqd/Ldr. Miller told the Coroner how,
while carrying out a routine test flight on August 8th, together with his observer, Mr.
Peter Frank Ainsbury, a civilian technical officer, who was attached to the Ministry of
Aircraft Production, Devizes Road, Salisbury, the machine suddenly caught fire which
spread rapidly throughout the cabin. The flames appeared to come from behind him,
and the observer's cabin in which Ainsbury was standing at the time was almost an
inferno. So intense was the heat that Miller was practically suffocated, but he
signalled to Ainsbury to bale out, and the signal was acknowledged. He managed to
keep the machine flying for a few seconds in order to give the observer a chance to
get out, and then he himself jettisoned his hatch and baled out, landing within a few
hundred yards from where the aircraft had crashed.
Although badly burned, he attempted to get into the blazing machine to see if
Ainsbury had managed to bale out-but owing to the heat, he was unsuccessful.
Asked if he could give any explanation as to the cause of the fire or where it had
originated, witness remarked that it had all happened so suddenly he had no
opportunity of even thinking about it. In reply to further questioning by the Coroner,
witness suggested that the intensification of the fire in the observer's compartment
may have caused deceased to lose consciousness.
Mr. E. G. Elton, of “Brown Eaves” Barkham Road, Wokingham, stated that he saw
the aircraft travelling from north-west, when it suddenly lost height, turned, and
abrupt1y dived towards the ground. He saw a parachute open when the machine .was
about 400 feet. When he first saw the machine there was no sign of fire, but flames
came from it as the machine turned.
Police Constable G, Yules who lives in Woosehill Lane, about a quarter of a mile
from where the 'plane crashed, said that he saw the machine roll, it then righted itself
and one of the engines started to splutter-then stop. He then saw flames coming from
the port engine and spread, to the undercarriage. As the 'plane dived earthwards, he

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