Found, grave of war pilot d, grave of war German battleship
RON Richardson was only 27 when he and his Hellcat fighter vanished over Norway during a raid on the fearsome German battleship Tirpitz.
For 74 years his family had no idea what had happened to the pilot, only that he was listed presumed killed in the 1944 operation.
But now the remains of his aircraft have been discovered 3,000 feet up a mountain where they have lain preserved in the snow and ice for decades.
And next to the wreckage was an empty shallow grave where the Lieutenant Commander Richardson’s body was hastily buried – before being moved to an unmarked grave in a military cemetery.
The moving discovery brings closure to his widow Sheila, now 95, and son Alistair, who met his father just once when he was a baby.
After the conflict his grieving wife, like so many other war widows, stoically got on with her life and later remarried.
Two years ago Mr Richardson’s grandson Philip, himself a Royal Navy commander, found a video posted on the internet that identified the crash site of a Hellcat in Norway. He and his father, 75, established the location overlooked the remote fjord where Tirpitz had been anchored.
The two have returned from Norway where they trekked for five hours to reach the wreckage and the empty grave. They believe Lieutenant Commander Richardson was reburied in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at nearby Tromso. The commission is now trying to establish that this is indeed his final resting place.
His grandson, from Winchester, Hampshire, said: ‘It was a most moving and incredible discovery. We found almost a complete but disintegrated Hellcat that had hardly weathered or perished as it has spent most of every year since covered in snow.
‘Three Hellcats were lost during the operation and this site corresponds with the location, flight plan, attack route. Sheila was very moved when we returned and told her what we had found.’
Ron Richardson had been an electrical engineer living in New Zealand when he answered the Commonwealth’s call for volunteers to join the war effort. He joined the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm.
While in England he met Sheila. They married in 1942, living in Esher, Surrey. Alistair was born in July 1944. But it wasn’t until six weeks later that Mr Richardson was given leave so he could see his son.
Commander Richardson, 44, said: ‘He spent just one night with his newborn son. My grandmother remembered him walking off down the garden path knowing she would never see him again. She had some sort of premonition.’
The pilot was based on the aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable which took part in Operation Goodwood – a series of raids on the Tirpitz. The Germans kept the ship hidden in the fjords where it posed a constant threat to Allied Arctic convoys.
On August 24 he led his squadron on a raid, making a steep dive through the German flak to release his 500lb bombs. His plane was hit but was last seen pulling up into the clouds. Commander Richardson said: ‘From what we could tell at the site, his aircraft clipped the very top of the mountain and cartwheeled down the other side. It was riddled with bullet holes. My grandmother had lost her husband
‘Knowing she would never see him again’
but lived her life with lots of unanswered questions.’
Alistair Richardson said: ‘I was about six weeks old when my father died. I am satisfied and am at peace now I know what happened to him.’
Commander Richardson, added: ‘The next step is to establish if the grave in Tromso is his, which we are fairly certain it is. It has been a very emotional experience and one that has filled me with an enormous amount of pride for my grandfather.’
Tirpitz was finally sunk by Lancaster bombers carrying 12,000lb Tallboy bombs on November 12, 1944.