the ground. Both the pilot and navigator were killed. Mosquito DD736 was piloted by Flying Officer Charles Preece from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada. He was one of two brothers and the son of a railway engineer on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He is buried at St Thomas a Beckett Church, Clapham, Bedfordshire. The navigator was a wartime hero – Flying Officer Frederick Ruffle DFC of 515 squadron. Before the crash Fred had flown over 61 sorties on intruder operations. Most of them with the elite 8 Group pathfinder squadron. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for the part he played in a succession of bombing raids on the Dortmund–Ems Canal in Germany. Fred left a wife and a ten-month-old daughter. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, High Hurstwood just off the A26 between Crowborough and Uckfield in Sussex. The aircraft had taken off so the pilot could train on a system known as Serrate. This was a device which enabled the Mosquito crew to home in on a German night fighter's airborne radar transmissions. In the late 1970s the aircraft was excavated from Middleton Fen by the R.A.F. and aircraft enthusiasts. Parts of the aircraft were taken to the Tower Museum at Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire. Notes http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Norfolk/Middleton Bibliography External links Villages in Norfolk King's Lynn and West Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk